Shahak Jewish History, Jewish Religion

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The Weight of Three Thousand Years

New Edition

ISRAEL SHAHAK

Forewords by Gore Vidal, Edward Said,
Norton Mezvinsky and Ilan Pappe

PLUTO PRESS

www.plutobooks.com

First published 1994 by Pluto Press
345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA

www.plutobooks.com

Reissued 1997 with an additional Foreword by Edward Said
Reissued 2002 with an additional Foreword by Norton Mezvinsky
New edition published 2008 with an additional Foreword by Ilan Pappe

Chapters 2, 3, 4 and 5 first appeared in the journal Khamsin and are
reproduced with permission.

Forewords copyright © 1994 Gore Vidal, 1997 Edward Said, 2002
Norton Mezvinsky and 2008 Ilan Pappe.

Copyright © 1994, 1997, 2002, 2008 the estate of Israel Shahak.

The right of Gore Vidal, Norton Mezvinsky and Ilan Pappe to be identified
as the authors of their respective forewords has been asserted by them in
accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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ISBN 978 0 7453 2840 9 Paperback

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data applied for

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CONTENTS

Foreword to the first edition by Gore Vidal vi

Foreword to the 1997 edition by Edward Said ix

Foreword to the 2002 edition by Norton Mezvinsky xv

Foreword to the 2008 edition by Ilan Pappe xx

1 A Closed Utopia? 1

2 Prejudice and Prevarication 17

3 Orthodoxy and Interpretation 38

4 The Weight of History 60

5 The Laws against Non-Jews 90

6 Political Consequences 119

Notes and References 125

Index 140

FOREWORD TO THE FIRST EDITION

Gore Vidal

Sometime in the late 1950s, that world-class gossip and occasional
historian, John F. Kennedy, told me how, in 1948, Harry S.
Truman had been pretty much abandoned by everyone when he
came to run for president. Then an American Zionist brought
him two million dollars in cash, in a suitcase, aboard his whistle-
stop campaign train. ‘That’s why our recognition of Israel was
rushed through so fast.’ As neither Jack nor I was an antisemite
(unlike his father and my grandfather) we took this to be just
another funny story about Truman and the serene corruption of
American politics.

Unfortunately, the hurried recognition of Israel as a state has
resulted in forty-five years of murderous confusion, and the
destruction of what Zionist fellow travellers thought would be
a pluralistic state - home to its native population of Muslims,
Christians and Jews, as well as a future home to peaceful European
and American Jewish immigrants, even the ones who affected
to believe that the great realtor in the sky had given them, in
perpetuity, the lands of Judea and Samaria. Since many of the
immigrants were good socialists in Europe, we assumed that they
would not allow the new state to become a theocracy, and that
the native Palestinians could live with them as equals. This was
not meant to be. I shall not rehearse the wars and alarms of that
unhappy region. But I will say that the hasty invention of Israel
has poisoned the political and intellectual life of the USA, Israel’s
unlikely patron.

Unlikely, because no other minority in American history has
ever hijacked so much money from the American taxpayers in
order to invest in a ‘homeland’. It is as if the American taxpayer
had been obliged to support the Pope in his reconquest of the

VI

FOREWORD TO THE FIRST EDITION vii

Papal States simply because one third of our people are Roman
Catholic. Had this been attempted, there would have been a
great uproar and Congress would have said no. But a religious
minority of less than two per cent has bought or intimidated
seventy senators (the necessary two thirds to overcome an unlikely
presidential veto) while enjoying support of the media.

In a sense, I rather admire the way that the Israel lobby has
gone about its business of seeing that billions of dollars, year after
year, go to make Israel a ‘bulwark against communism’. Actually,
neither the USSR nor communism was ever much of a presence in
the region. What America did manage to do was to turn the once
friendly Arab world against us. Meanwhile, the misinformation
about what is going on in the Middle East has got even greater and
the principal victim of these gaudy lies - the American taxpayer
to one side - is American Jewry, as it is constantly bullied by such
professional terrorists as Begin and Shamir. Worse, with a few
honourable exceptions, Jewish- American intellectuals abandoned
liberalism for a series of demented alliances with the Christian
(anti-semitic) right and with the Pentagon-industrial complex.
In 1985 one of them blithely wrote that when Jews arrived
on the American scene they ‘found liberal opinion and liberal
politicians more congenial in their attitudes, more sensitive to
Jewish concerns’ but now it is in the Jewish interest to ally with
the Protestant fundamentalists because, after all, ‘is there any
point in Jews hanging on, dogmatically, hypocritically, to their
opinions of yesteryear?’ At this point the American left split and
those of us who criticised our onetime Jewish allies for misguided
opportunism, were promptly rewarded with the ritual epithet
‘antisemite’ or ‘self-hating Jew’.

Fortunately, the voice of reason is alive and well, and in Israel,
of all places. From Jerusalem, Israel Shahak never ceases to analyse
not only the dismal politics of Israel today but the Talmud itself,
and the effect of the entire rabbinical tradition on a small state
that the right-wing rabbinate means to turn into a theocracy for
Jews only. I have been reading Shahak for years. He has a satirist’s
eye for the confusions to be found in any religion that tries to
rationalise the irrational. He has a scholar’s sharp eye for textual

viii JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

contradictions. He is a joy to read on the great Gentile-hating Dr
Maimonides.

Needless to say, Israel’s authorities deplore Shahak. But there
is not much to be done with a retired professor of chemistry
who was born in Warsaw in 1933 and spent his childhood in the
concentration camp at Belsen. In 1945, he came to Israel; served
in the Israeli military; did not become a Marxist in the years when
it was fashionable. He was - and still is - a humanist who detests
imperialism whether in the name of the God of Abraham or of
George Bush. Equally, he opposes with great wit and learning
the totalitarian strain in Judaism. Like a highly learned Thomas
Paine, Shahak illustrates the prospect before us, as well as the
long history behind us, and thus he continues to reason, year after
year. Those who heed him will certainly be wiser and - dare I say?
- better. He is the latest, if not the last, of the great prophets.

FOREWORDTO THE 1997 EDITION

Edward Said

Professor Israel Shahak, emeritus professor of organic chemistry at
the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, is one of the most remarkable
individuals in the contemporary Middle East. I first met him and
began a regular correspondence with him almost twenty-five years
ago, in the aftermath first of the 1967 and then the 1973 war.
Born in Poland, and having survived and then escaped a Nazi
concentration camp, he came to Palestine immediately after World
War Two. Like all young Israelis of the time, he served in the army,
and for many years served in the military reserves for a short
period every summer, as Israeli law requires. Possessed of a fierce,
relentlessly inquisitive and probing intellect, Shahak pursued his
career as an outstanding university lecturer and researcher in
organic chemistry - he was often named the best teacher by his
students, and given awards for his academic performance - and
at the same time began to see for himself what Zionism and the
practices of the state of Israel entailed in suffering and deprivation
not only for the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza, but
for the substantial non-Jewish (i.e. Palestinian minority) people
who did not leave in the expulsion of 1948, remained, and then
became Israeli citizens. This then led him to a systematic inquiry
into the nature of the Israeli state, its history, ideological and
political discourses which, he quickly discovered, were unknown
to most non-Israelis, especially Diaspora Jews for whom Israel
was a marvelous, democratic, and miraculous state deserving
unconditional support and defense.

He then re-established and was for several years the Chairman
of the Israeli League of Human Rights, a relatively small group of
like-minded people whose idea it was that human rights should
be equal for everyone, not just for the Jews. It was in that specific

ix

x JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

context that I first became aware of his work. The one thing
that immediately distinguished Shahak’s political positions from
that of most other Israeli and non-Israeli Jewish doves was that
he alone stated the unadorned truth, without consideration for
whether that truth, if stated plainly, might not be ‘good’ for Israel
or the Jews. He was profoundly, and I would say aggressively and
radically, un- and anti-racist in his writings and public statements;
there was one standard, and one standard only, for infractions
against human rights, so it did not matter if most of the time Israeli
Jews were assaulting Palestinians, since he, as an intellectual,
had to testify against those assaults. It is no exaggeration to say
that so strictly did he adhere to this position that he very soon
became an extremely unpopular man in Israel. I recall that about
fifteen years ago he was declared dead, although of course he was
extremely alive; the Washington Post reported his ‘death’ in a
story which, after Shahak actually visited the Post to prove that
he was not ‘dead’ he gleefully told his friends, had no effect on
the Post which has never printed a correction! So to some people
he is still ‘dead’, a wish-fantasy that reveals how uncomfortable
he makes ‘friends of Israel’ feel.

It should also be said that Shahak’s mode of telling the truth
has always been rigorous and uncompromising. There is nothing
seductive about it, no attempt made to put it ‘nicely’, no effort
expended on making the truth palatable, or somehow explainable.
For Shahak killing is murder is killing is murder: his manner is to
repeat, to shock, to bestir the lazy or indifferent into galvanized
awareness of the human pain that they might be responsible for.
At times Shahak has annoyed and angered people, but this is part
of his personality and, it must be said, of his sense of mission.
Along with the late Professor Yehoshua Leibowitch, a man he
deeply admired and often worked with, Shahak endorsed the
phrase ‘Judeo-Nazi’ to characterize methods used by the Israelis
to subordinate and repress the Palestinians. Yet he never said or
wrote anything that he did not find out for himself, see with his
own eyes, experience directly. The difference between him and
most other Israelis was that he made the connections between

FOREWORD TO THE 1997 EDITION xi

Zionism, Judaism, and repressive practices against ‘non-Jews’:
and of course he drew the conclusions.

A great deal of what he writes has had the function of exposing
propaganda and lies for what they are. Israel is unique in the
world for the excuses made on its behalf: journalists either do not
see or write what they know to be true for fear of blacklisting or
retaliation; political, cultural, and intellectual figures, especially
in Europe and the United States, go out of their way to praise
Israel and shower it with the greatest largesse of any nation on
earth, even though many of them are aware of the injustices of the
country. They say nothing about those. The result is an ideological
smoke screen that more than any single individual Shahak has
labored to dissipate. A Holocaust victim and survivor himself,
he knows the meaning of antisemitism. Yet unlike most others
he does not allow the horrors of the Holocaust to manipulate the
truth of what in the name of the Jewish people Israel has done to
the Palestinians. For him, suffering is not the exclusive possession
of one group of victims; it should instead be, but rarely is, the
basis for humanizing the victims, making it incumbent on them
not to cause suffering of the kind that they suffered. Shahak has
admonished his compatriots not to forget that an appalling history
of antisemitism endured does not entitle them to do what they
wish, just because they have suffered. No wonder then that he
has been so unpopular, since by saying such things, Shahak has
morally undermined Israel’s laws and political practices towards
the Palestinians.

Shahak goes even further. He is an absolute and unwavering
secularist when it comes to human history. By this I do not mean
to say that he is against religion, but rather that he is against
religion as a way of explaining events, justifying irrational and
cruel policies, aggrandizing one group of ‘believers’ at the expense
of the others. What is also surprising is that Shahak is not, properly
speaking, a man of the left. In a whole variety of ways he is
very critical of Marxism, and traces his principles to European
free-thinkers, liberals, and courageous public intellectuals like
Voltaire and Orwell. What makes Shahak even more formidable
as a supporter of Palestinian rights is that he does not succumb

xii JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

to the sentimental idea that because the Palestinians have suffered
under Israel they must be excused for their follies. Far from it:
Shahak has always been quite critical of the PLO’s sloppiness,
its ignorance of Israel, its inability to resolutely oppose Israel, its
shabby compromises and cult of personality, its general lack of
seriousness. He has also spoken out forcefully against revenge or
‘honor’ killings against Palestinian women, and has always been
a strong supporter of feminist liberation.

During the 1980s when it became fashionable for Palestinian
intellectuals and a few PLO officers to seek out ‘dialogue’ with the
Israeli doves of Peace Now, the Labor Party, and Meretz, Shahak
was routinely excluded. For one, he was extremely critical of
the Israeli peace camp for its compromises, its shameful practice
of pressuring the Palestinians and not the Israeli government
for changes in policy, its unwillingness to free itself from the
constraints of ‘protecting’ Israel by not saying anything critical
about it to non-Jews. For another, he was never a politician:
he simply did not believe in all the posturing and circumlocu¬
tions that people with political ambitions were always willing to
indulge. He fought for equality, truth, real peace and dialogue
with Palestinians; the official Israeli doves fought for arrangements
that would make possible the kind of peace that brought Oslo,
and which Shahak was one of the first to denounce. Speaking as
a Palestinian, however, I was always ashamed that Palestinian
activists who were anxious to dialogue in secret or in public
with the Labor Party or Meretz, refused to have anything to do
with Shahak. For them he was too radical, too outspoken, too
marginal with regard to official power. Secretly, I think, they also
feared that he would be too critical of Palestinian policies. He
certainly would have.

Aside from his example as an intellectual who never betrayed
his calling or compromised with the truth as he saw it, Shahak
performed an immense service over the years for his friends and
supporters abroad. Acting on the correct premise that the Israeli
press was paradoxically more truthful and informative about
Israel than either the Arab or Western media, he has laboriously
translated, annotated, and then reproduced and also dispatched

FOREWORD TO THE 1997 EDITION xiii

thousands of articles from the Hebrew-language press. It is
impossible to over-estimate this service. For me, as someone who
spoke and wrote about Palestine, I could not have done what I
did without Shahak’s papers and of course his example as a seeker
after truth, knowledge, and justice. It is as simple as that, and I
therefore owe him a gigantic debt of gratitude. He did this labor
at his own expense for the most part, as well as on his own time.
The footnotes he added and the little introductions that he wrote
for his monthly selections from the press were invaluable for
their searching wit, deeply informative pithiness, and unendingly
pedagogical patience. All the while of course Shahak continued his
scientific research and his teaching, neither of which had anything
to do with his annotations and translations.

Somehow he also found time to become the most erudite
individual I have ever known. His range of knowledge of music,
literature, sociology and above all history - in Europe, Asia and
elsewhere - is unrivaled in my experience. But it is as a scholar of
Judaism that he towers over so many others, since it is Judaism
that has occupied his energies as a scholar and political activist
from the beginning. A few years ago he began interspersing his
translations with Reports, that soon became monthly documents
of several thousand words on one topic - for example, the real
rabbinical background to Rabin’s assassination, or why Israel
must make peace with Syria (surprisingly because Syria is the
only Arab country which can actually harm Israel militarily), and
so on. These were invaluable digests of the press, plus extremely
shrewd, often inspired analyses of current trends and issues,
usually obscured or unreported by the mainstream media.

I have always known Shahak to be a prodigious historian,
brilliant intellectual and polymath scholar, and political activist;
but as I suggested above I have come to realize his central ‘hobby’
has been a study of Judaism, of the rabbinical and Talmudic
traditions, and of the scholarship on the subject. This book is
therefore a powerful contribution to these things. It is no less than
a succinct history of ‘classical’ as well as more recent Judaism, as
those apply to an understanding of modern Israel. Shahak shows
that the obscure, narrowly chauvinist prescriptions against various

xiv JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

undesirable Others are to be found in Judaism (as well of course
as other monotheistic traditions) but he also then goes on to show
the continuity between those and the way Israel treats Palestinians,
Christians and other non-Jews. A devastating portrait of prejudice,
hypocrisy and religious intolerance emerges. What is important
about it is that Shahak’s description gives the lie not only to
the fictions about Israel’s democracy that abound in the Western
media, but it also implicitly indicts Arab leaders and intellectuals
for their scandalously ignorant view of that state, especially when
they pontificate to their people that Israel has really changed and
now wants peace with Palestinians and other Arabs.

Shahak is a very brave man who should be honored for
his services to humanity. But in today’s world the example of
indefatigable work, unrelenting moral energy, and intellectual
brilliance that he has set are an embarrassment to the status
quo, and to everyone for whom the word ‘controversial’ means
‘unwelcome’ and ‘unsettling’. I am certain, however, that what
he says in Jewish History, Jewish Religion will be a source of
discomfort to his Arab readers as well. I am sure he would say
that he is pleased.

FOREWORDTOTHE2002 EDITION

Norton Mezvinsky

In his introduction to the first edition of Jewish History, Jewish
Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years, Gore Vidal
referred to Israel Shahak as ‘the latest, if not the last of the great
prophets’. Certainly this landmark book, praised highly by many,
severely condemned by some, and extremely controversial, fits
into the prophetic genre. This is not a happy book of Jewish
apologetics. It is rather a bitter critique of both classical rabbinic
Judaism and the Zionist nature of the state of Israel, written
by a proud, erudite, courageous Jew who loved the prophetic
tradition in Judaism and the positive aspects of Jewish history.
Israel Shahak, who died suddenly in Jerusalem on 3 July, 2001,
was firmly rooted in and championed the best features of
contemporary, Israeli, Jewish society. He believed that Jews, as
well as others, needed to understand and to engage in criticism
of the negative aspects of their past lest they be condemned to
repeat commission of sins against humanity. In a shrill, concise,
learned and rational manner this modern-day prophet, a disciple
of Spinoza, detailed his criticism. In doing so, he focused primarily
upon the parochialism, racism and hatred of non-Jews that has
continued to plague classical Judaism and much of Jewish society
from the talmudic period until the present time. In writing this
book, Israel Shahak drew upon research and contemplation dating
back at least four decades and added some new insights. As in his
other writings, he directed much of his rage against Jewish scholars
who have attempted to censor by omission negative features in
order to present only a nice Judaism and a good history of Jews.
In commentary about this book, Noam Chomsky wrote: ‘Shahak
is an outstanding scholar with remarkable insight and depth of

xv

xvi JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

knowledge. His work is informal and penetrating, a contribution
of great value.’

Soon after publication of the first edition some individual
antisemites and antisemitic groups began to utilize unduly
Shahak’s criticisms in trying to justify their hatred of Jews. They
have continued to do this either by citing and/or using out-of-
context some of Shahak’s points. They allege that what Shahak
wrote confirms their generalizations about the ‘evil nature’ of
Jews. This should not be surprising. Such individuals and groups
commonly employ this same method when using statements
made by numerous individuals who sometimes hold widely
divergent views.

What is even more unfortunate is that some diaspora Jewish
critics, including a few academics, have in vicious, ad-hominen
attacks labeled Shahak and this book antisemitic. In doing so,
they most often have not even attempted to refute substantively
and specifically his major arguments. They have merely stated
or inferred that he did not tell the truth. They have chided him
for not presenting more positive arguments about Judaism and
Jews and have assailed him for providing ammunition for other
antisemites. Prior to his death, Shahak often delighted in answering
and demolishing with superior erudition such attacks. In contrast
some of the best reviews of the first edition of this book have been
written by Israeli Jewish scholars and reviewers, some of whom
have taken issue with Shahak on certain points but nevertheless
have on balance praised and noted the importance of the book.
Baruch Kimmerling, a professor at the Hebrew University in
Jerusalem and one of Israel’s leading sociologists, for example,
wrote in his review, published in the Journal of Palestinian Studies:
‘Despite some of my reservations, Shahak’s book is very important,
especially within the context of the international kulturkampf
between various elements of the Jewish population in Israel and
the diaspora.’

Israel Shahak and his ideas can only be fully understood as
products of Israeli society. Shahak came to Palestine in 1945 with
his mother after having been liberated from the Nazi concentration
camp Bergen-Belsen and having experienced and observed the

FOREWORD TO THE 2002 EDITION xvii

horrors of the Holocaust. As a young Jew from Poland who had
survived Nazi occupation and persecution, he immediately felt
at home in his new parochial Jewish environment in the part of
Palestine to which he had emigrated. From the time of his arrival
until his death he never considered living permanently anywhere
else. Jerusalem was the city he most loved. His repudiation of
the religious faith in which he had been reared, his conversion
to secularism and his later revolt against Zionism did not cause
him to reject totally Israeli-Jewish society, aspects of which he
adored, or the state of which he was a citizen. Neither his decision
and necessary education to become a scientist nor his work as
a research chemist and a teaching professor of chemistry at the
Hebrew University for twenty-five years kept him from being
actively involved in Israeli Jewish society or from continuing in-
depth study of Jewish history. As a concerned and supremely
ethical human being, Israel Shahak was a citizen of the world.
He was also an Israeli Jew with deep roots in the country he both
loved and severely criticized.

The re-publication of Jewish History, Jewish Religion is a fitting
tribute to a great humanitarian. As a human rights advocate and
activist, Shahak had few equals. He achieved wide recognition in
Israel, in Arab countries and throughout much of the rest of the
world by vigorously advocating human rights for all people. He
preached and acted against individuals and institutions, mostly
within his own society, who oppressed others. For thirty-five
years he focused mainly upon Israel’s denial of human rights to
end oppression of Palestinians. After the 1967 war he became a
member of the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights and
was elected its chairperson in 1970. As chairperson he led the
League, whose members were Jewish and Palestinian citizens of
the state of Israel, in its protests and campaigns against Israeli
governmental policies and actions that deprived Palestinians of
their human rights. Under Shahak’s leadership the League became
more effective.

In the early 1970s Shahak decided that too little was known
outside of Israel about the denial of human rights to and
oppression of Palestinians in the Jewish state. He then decided

xviii JEWISH H ISTO RY, J E Wl SH RELIGION

to work on disseminating more information, especially in the
United States. It was at this time that I first met Israel Shahak.
Together, we began to plan how to do this. Our campaign
began with my organizing Shahak’s first lecture tour in 1972.
He made subsequent lecture tours in the 1970s, 1980s, and
1990s. He spoke to audiences at universities, colleges, churches,
organizations and other institutions. He also spoke privately with
numerous people, including some members of Congress and State
Department officials. Shahak in his talks pinpointed how the
Israeli government denied to Palestinian citizens of the Jewish
state certain rights reserved for Jews and how Palestinians living
in the occupied territories, who were not citizens, were treated far
worse. He carefully documented each of his points and distributed
his English translations of articles, further confirming what he had
said, written by Israeli Jews and published in the Israeli Hebrew
press. Shahak continually maintained in his analysis that Israeli
oppression of Palestinians stemmed from the Zionist character
of the Jewish state. This same analysis appears in Jewish History,
Jewish Religion.

Soon after his first United States speaking tour, Israel Shahak
and I decided that regular distribution of English translations of
critical articles from the Hebrew press would be useful. With the
help of some other individuals and a few organizations, we were
able to initiate this project. The translated articles were published
in a variety of ways throughout the rest of the 1970s and the
1980s. From 1988 until 1997 the translated articles, picked by
Shahak, were published in Translations from the Hebrew Press
and distributed to a growing list of subscribers. (Frank Collins was
instrumental in helping Shahak launch this publication.) Shahak
additionally wrote his own articles that were published in a variety
of English and American journals and periodicals.

After retiring from his teaching post at the Hebrew University
in the early 1990s, Israel Shahak devoted himself even more to
the above work. He also wrote three books, of which Jewish
History, Jewish Religion, originally published in 1994, was the
first. This book is vintage Shahak and deserves a careful reading by
people interested in Judaism, Zionism, Israel and the Arab-Israeli

FOREWORD TO THE 2002 EDITION xix

conflict. His two other books, Open Secrets: Israeli Nuclear and
Foreign Policies and Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, which I
co-authored, also deserve careful reading.

Israel Shahak died too soon. At age 68 he was at the height
of his productive creativity. He was a rare intellectual giant and
a superior humanist. He was, as Edward Said observed, ‘a very
brave man who should be honored for his service to humanity’.

FOREWORD TO THE 2008 EDITION

Ilan Pappe

Palestine is a place with a very well-chartered modern history
of wrongdoing that began with the 1948 Nakbah. This first
formative juncture in the tale was uniquely catastrophic and still
overshadows, in its enormity, everything that occurred henceforth.
The destruction wreaked by the Israeli army and State was of
such magnitude that nothing in the country’s history since then
can compare to it. The next landmarks were to be found in the
1956 Qafar Qassam massacre, the expulsions of 1967, the 1982
atrocities committed in Lebanon and finally the brutal repression
of the two Palestinian uprisings in 1987 and 2000.

For most historians, the 1956 colonialist project of toppling
down Gamal abd al-Nasser was not such a landmark. This
Anglo-Israeli -French collusion, which failed famously after a rare
American-Soviet objection to it, was not, by any standards, one
of the worst chapters in this history. And yet, it is this historical
juncture, more than any other, which affected singularly the
author of this book.

It was not the collusion itself that reshaped the ideological
and moral world of Israel Shahak, but rather the narrative that
accompanied it. This appeared most strikingly in the rhetoric of
David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s prime minister at the time and the
architect of the invasion of the Sinai. His constant references to
the Sinai operation as the dawn of a new era which heralded the
re-establishment of the old Jewish biblical Empire alarmed Israel
Shahak. It reaffirmed his worst fears and apprehensions about the
new Jewish state. The state of Israel appeared to him as a sinister
destructive war machine that would stop at nothing in its battle
against the Arab world in general and the Palestinian people
in particular. This machine, to his great horror, was fuelled by

XX

FOREWORD TO THE 2008 EDITION xxi

Jewish theology and modern-day nationalism. This was a lethal
combination that reminded Shahak of the policies that trampled
his life in Poland where he was born and from which he came
to Palestine in 1948. This association must have been extremely
painful for this survivor of a Nazi concentration camp who had
just begun, after settling safely in Israel, a retrospective journey
into his past. From that moment on, his writings and activities
were directed against the abuses and injustices perpetrated by
his new state, as if such a commitment was the best way of
confronting the horror he underwent in Bergen Belzen and in other
sites of Holocaust Europe. These inputs were already articulated
by him in the 1960s, but it seems that only in this book did he
reach the moment in which he could spell out, with clarity and
precision, these postulations about the evil side of Judaism and
modern day Israel.

Back in the 1950s, when he was so appalled by the Israeli
aggression, he underwent a more personal experience that
corroborated his new revelations about the Jewish state. Shahak
encountered the daily interpretations of the Jewish rabbinical
laws in the newly founded Israel and was distressed by the specific
way it was applied towards, or should we say against, non-Jews,
namely the Palestinian citizens. He asserted that what he saw
was a literal implementation of principal Jewish theological texts
according to a tradition that stretched back to the early days of the
religion. He set out to research these texts and the global Jewish
history, concluding that the Palestinians were not just the victims
of colonialist and oppressive military policies, but had fallen prey
to an overarching racist theological ideology.

This heritage was illuminated for Shahak in the way this
theology dealt with the value of human life. His own position on
this subject was very simple: one could not doubt the supreme
value of human life and the obligation of every human being to do
the utmost to save the life of a fellow human. He saw first hand
the most brutal violation of this value by the Nazis and by the
Europeans who stood by, watching and doing nothing, when Jews
were systematically massacred throughout the continent. Shahak’s
greatest dismay was to learn how the Halakhah instructs Jews to

xxii JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

adopt a similarly passive attitude if the victims of the atrocities
are not Jews. According to the Halakhah, the duty to save the
life of a fellow Jew is paramount. It supersedes all other religious
obligations and interdictions, excepting only the prohibitions
against the three most heinous sins of adultery (including incest),
murder and idolatry. However, when it comes to the gentiles, the
picture is different and the basic Talmudic principle is that their
lives must not be saved, although it is also forbidden to murder
them outright. The Talmud itself expresses this in the maxim
‘gentiles are neither to be lifted [out of a well] nor hauled down
[into it]’. It seems that Shahak’s abhorrence was triggered not
by the texts themselves, but by their strict implementation in
modern day Israel. An Arab citizen wounded in a car accident
on a Sabbath would not be helped by religious Jews - this was
the practical implication of this precept. Shahak then goes on to
enumerate a long list of Jewish precepts degrading the non-Jews
and demoting them to be of a lesser humanity and of inferior
being. These precepts’ relevance, indeed their continued sanctity
in a post-Holocaust Jewish world was, for Shahak, an abuse of
the holocaust memory and legacy.

The texts of the Halakhah, Mishna and the Talmud, some
of which have been obscured from the public eye for political
reasons, reveal an inhuman, utterly unacceptable perception
of the non-Jew, the gentile. Equally disturbing for Shahak was
the inability of modern day Israel to learn from what he saw
as the egotistic and ethnocentric Jewish behaviour throughout
history; in particular in 19th century East Europe, which was
a period and location chosen by Shahak not by random choice,
but due to the formative role they still play today in the Zionist
narrative as justifying the drive to colonise Palestine. He focused,
in particular, on the role the Jews played as facilitators of the more
negative aspects of the regimes’ oppressive policies. Reading these
chapters through his eyes, one can see how manipulative and
misleading the hegemonic Israeli narrative of modern Jewish life
is, both in its scholarly and more popular forms. The life of Jews
in Eastern Europe still appears today in Israel as a perpetual and
relentless tale of Christian and European persecution that only

FOREWORD TO THE 2008 EDITION xxiii

ceased with the emergence of Zionism and the creation of the
State of Israel. Shahak challenged this view head on. He did it by
pointing out the way, or as he put it ‘the easy way’, with which
the oppressed peasants were totally obliterated from the narrative
of the worst chapter of this history: the 19th century pogroms.
The non-Jewish peasants suffered more, claimed Shahak, or at
least equally suffered, from the oppressive reality in Eastern
Europe. Shahak did not ignore their atrocities against the Jews
but claims the Jews were not innocent in the chain of events that
developed. Furthermore, Shahak pointed out how the memory
of the atrocities against the Jews was manipulated by political
Zionism to justify a modern day anti-gentile theology ‘in exactly
the same way that the Palestinian terror is used to justify the
denial of justice to the Palestinians’.

You have to be a graduate of the Israeli school system, as I am,
to appreciate what it means to debunk or at least challenge the
accepted Zionist narrative of the Chemlinsky pogroms and to
assume that the Jews were partly guilty in bringing them about
or that the peasants suffered more in those days than did the
Jews. The memory of these pogroms was the cornerstone on
which the educational indoctrination in Israel was permeated.
Chemlinsky’s policies were the culmination of a teleological anti-
Christian Jewish policy that had begun with Christ himself. And
again, it was hammered down upon us, throughout all of our years
in the educational system, that only the creation of the State of
Israel brought an end to this ongoing calamity. Moreover, we also
learned that the modern day Chemlinskies are Arabs, and mainly
Palestinians, but they, in turn, cannot implement their evil schemes
because the Jewish state has an army that would use every means
it possesses against this last form of anti-Semitism.

Shahak’s brilliant analysis of how the Palestinians became the
evil and dangerous gentiles in modern day Israel rings truer today
than in any other period. After 9/11, the Muslims replaced the
Christians as the occupiers of the most negative pole on the Jewish
field of morality. The Palestinians were depicted as the worst
species of this new Islamic demonic being and, hence, any action
against them, even the most brutal one, was justified. In this

xxiv JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

respect, it is noteworthy that long before 9/11, Shahak remarked
on the distorted Israeli historiography of the Jewish communities
in the Muslim countries. They enjoyed more autonomy than their
fellow Jews in Europe and did not develop any Zionist tendencies
or ambitions. And yet, always the secularist and humanist, he did
not fail to mention that the relative autonomy the Jews enjoyed
in the Muslim world in its turn strengthened the authoritarian
rabbinical rule in the community, including its anti-gentile bias.
Very few activists on the Israeli left, who are so eager to recruit
the Mizrachi Jews, including the most Orthodox among them,
have noticed this, or dared to air this truth in public.

Shahak did not pretend to be a theologian and did not demand
revising the texts, but rather suggested superseding them for the
sake of more universal philosophies of humanity and liberty.
His was a call for the universalisation of the Holocaust memory,
underlined by the recognition that the poison of racist supremacy
lies dormant in the blood of every nation, including the Jewish. He
warned that the continued adherence to the anti-gentile religious
texts would enzymise this venom in the Jewish people.

The place of the ‘other’, the gentile, in Jewish history and
thought is, therefore, the departure point of this book. From this
posture, Shahak offers a critical review of the past and its impact
on the present. His conclusion is very harsh: Jewish life in modern
times is directed and defined by an exclusionist and chauvinist
ideology. This conclusion is broadcast by a Holocaust survivor
who did not hesitate to include in his historical case studies of
dangerous exclusionist ideologies both Nazism and Zionism. He
does not compare them per se, but warns us against the horrific
dangers incurred in the magnetic attraction such ideologies of racial
superiority and supremacy can have for people. These ideologies
are so powerful that they can also appeal to people, such as the
Jews, who should have known better, being the recent victims of
the most horrid manifestation of these ideologies. And throughout
this book, Shahak, with the moral voice that is heard loud and
clear, cautions us that those who do not learn from history are
condemned to repeat it. More specifically, he admonishes those
Jews who refuse to come to terms with the Jewish past: they

FOREWORD TO THE 2008 EDITION xxv

have become its slaves and are repeating its immoral message
by adhering to Zionist ideology and by not challenging Israeli
policies. The focus is on Jewish life, but Shahak’s message is
far more universal: a cry against Sui Generism and exclusivity
wherever it exists. It is also a call for the replacement of ethno-
centricism by what Shahak calls normalisation: the adoption of
a humanist approach to human beings.

These insights and apprehensions did not emerge in one day
in the 1950s, when the messianism of Ben-Gurion completely
terrified Shahak. In fact, there is a sense in the book that the
illusionary and deceptive ‘peace process’ launched at Oslo in 1993
was the last and final proof for the destructive role Jewish ideology
plays in the annals of Palestine. The peace process for Shahak was
an international legitimisation for this particular ethnocentric
religious ideology. By championing the Oslo Accord, the Western
World was endorsing Jewish racism instead of opposing it. Shahak
had very little faith in the ability of any American administra¬
tion to serve as an honest peace broker and was not surprised
by Washington’s unconditional support for Israel. However, he
seemed to lament painfully the inability of Europe to adopt a
universal humanist position vis-a-vis the Palestine question. He
attributed this impotence to the European guilt complex about
the Holocaust and years of persecution.

The relevance of these observations for our time should be quite
apparent. The same solid ideological infrastructure that directed
Israeli policies ever since 1948 is still there today. The convenient
tendency of all past and present peace brokers to ignore this
crucial layer on which the Israeli violence is based is still the main
obstacle for any genuine move toward peace and reconciliation.

The book helps to elucidate the meaning of Zionism today. It
is an ideology of exclusion that is the basis first and foremost for
defining the contemporary Jewish identity. The formula is that
anyone who is not an Arab is a Jew. This definition allows anyone
who is not an Arab - not ethnically necessarily but mainly as defined
by the powers that be - to benefit from what the exclusionary
ideology brings with it: territory, capital, rights, etc. Some Arabs
are clearly defined, such as Palestinians in the occupied territories,

xxvi JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

but others less so, for instance the Druze community in Israel,
not to mention the Arab Jews (the Mizrachim). Therefore, it is
not hermetic, but quite effective.

The end result of policies formulated out of such an ideology
is an ever-growing Israeli appetite for control, land and ethnic
purity. The great success of the Israelis, which must have irritated
Shahak more in the wake of the Oslo Accord than in any other
period, is to sell this outlook of the world as a humanist and
democratic doctrine, while at the same time, attributing racism
and expansionism to the Palestinian resistance movement.

With such a PR for their own ideology, it is no wonder Israel
Shahak - at the height of the Oslo day - was particularly worried
about the free hand Israel was allowed, by the West, in the occupied
territories. Its army continued, uninterrupted and uncensored, its
policy of ethnic cleansing and colonisation. And when the process
failed, it was the Palestinians who were blamed for its demise,
while Israel was left free to escalate the implementation of its
exclusionary and racist ideology.

If there is room for debating this very powerful and convincing
analysis of Shahak, it is only in the field of proportionality and
measure. Shahak appears in this book as a sole textualist, whereas
quite a few of those who research religion in modern times are
contextualists; namely they view the religious texts as dynamic
interpretations of existing realities rather than fixed strictures
enjoying a lasting power of their own.

Moreover, one can take issue with the dominant, indeed exclusive
role Shahak attributes to the Jewish religion and history in creating
the ideology of Zionism, while accepting fully his analysis of
the current nature of this ideology and its dire consequences.
Shahak is right in claiming that the anti-gentile attitudes in the
religion were concealed from public eye in the pre-Zionist era,
while being cemented back into the religion, after the creation of
the State of Israel. However, there must be more to religion than
its sacred texts and legal stipulations, as accurate as Shahak may
be in bringing them about. It is their particular interpretation
in the 20th century by mainly secular Jews that believed that
God does not exist but He nonetheless promised them Palestine,

FOREWORD TO THE 2008 EDITION xxvii

which is the crux of the matter. The wealth of Jewish thought
and interpretation could, and did, produce a more humanist and
universalist view of the world, and of the ‘other’ non-Jew in it,
than the one depicted by Shahak. Indeed, religion can be, and
has been, the outlet for the nationalist, colonialist and imperialist
villain, but it was also the bedrock for cosmopolitanism, socialism
and universalism. In more than one way, the problem with Israel
is not its Jewish character but its lack of Jewishness. Jewishness
here can mean a solid connection of a multilayered history and
civilisation that moved people to spearhead the same Human
Rights Leagues in modern times, such as the group Israel Shahak
had founded in Israel with a group of other concerned Jewish
citizens of the state.

The ethnic group of Jews who redefined for themselves, and
quite successfully for many others, Judaism as primarily racist,
expulsionist and supremacist are indeed endangering this rich
heritage. However, their world was shaped less by past Halakhic
laws or histories of distant communities and more by the matrix
of historical events that produced the colonialist and ethnic project
of Zionism in Palestine. Sometimes, Karl Marx can offer a better
understanding of the way repressive realities developed than can
a simple reading of religious texts.

However, I, and the readers, cannot ignore the strong case
made in this book about the impact of a dominant, established
interpretation of religion and the intriguing reading of historical
chapters in explaining the root problem in Palestine. The work of
deciphering what lies behind these oppressive realties is incomplete
as of yet and needs to be pushed forward. One day it will be
completed, and those who accomplish this crucial assignment
will have had to rely heavily on Shahak’s analysis. No one could
ignore anymore the fundamental role the Jewish religion plays
in the making of Israel’s criminal policies. One could only hope
that indeed alternative rich reservoirs of heritage, history and
humanity would enable us in Israel and Palestine to realise the
vision Shahak longs for.

Therefore, the real test facing both Israeli and Diaspora Jews
is the test of their self-criticism, which must include the critique

xxviii JEWISH H ISTO RY, J E WISH RELIGION

of the Jewish past. The most important part of such a critique
must be a detailed and honest confrontation of the Jewish attitude
toward non-Jews. This is what many Jews justly demand from
non-Jews: to confront their own past and so become aware of
the discrimination and persecutions inflicted on the Jews. In the
last 40 years, the number of non-Jews killed by Jews is by far
greater than the number of Jews killed by non-Jews. The extent
of the persecution and discrimination against non-Jews inflicted
by the ‘Jewish state’ with the support of organised diaspora Jews
is also enormously greater than the suffering inflicted on Jews by
regimes hostile to their Jews. Although the struggle against anti-
Semitism (and against all other forms of racism) should never
cease, the struggle against Jewish chauvinism and exclusivism
which must include a critique of classical Judaism, is now of
equal or greater importance.

1

A CLOSED UTOPIA?

I write here what I think is true, for the stories of the Creeks are numerous and in
my opinion ridiculous. (Hecateus of Miletus, as quoted by Herodotus)

Amicus Plato sed magis arnica veritas - Plato is a friend but truth is a greater
friend. (Traditional paraphrase of a passage of Aristotle's Ethics)

In a free state every man can think what he wants and say what he thinks.
(Spinoza)

This book, although written in English and addressed to people
living outside the State of Israel, is, in a way, a continuation of
my political activities as an Israeli Jew. Those activities began in
1965-6 with a protest which caused a considerable scandal at
the time: I had personally witnessed an ultra-religious Jew refuse
to allow his phone to be used on the Sabbath in order to call an
ambulance for a non-Jew who happened to have collapsed in
his Jerusalem neighbourhood. Instead of simply publishing the
incident in the press, I asked for a meeting with the members of
the Rabbinical Court of Jerusalem, which is composed of rabbis
nominated by the State of Israel. I asked them whether such
behaviour was consistent with their interpretation of the Jewish
religion. They answered that the Jew in question had behaved
correctly, indeed piously, and backed their statement by referring
me to a passage in an authoritative compendium of Talmudic
laws, written in this century. I reported the incident to the main
Hebrew daily, Ha’aretz, whose publication of the story caused a
media scandal.

The results of the scandal were, for me, rather negative. Neither
the Israeli, nor the diaspora, rabbinical authorities ever reversed

1

2 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

their ruling that a Jew should not violate the Sabbath in order to
save the life of a Gentile. They added much sanctimonious twaddle
to the effect that if the consequence of such an act puts Jews in
danger, the violation of the Sabbath is permitted, for their sake. It
became apparent to me, as drawing on knowledge acquired in my
youth, I began to study the Talmudic laws governing the relations
between Jews and non-Jews, that neither Zionism, including its
seemingly secular part, nor Israeli politics since the inception
of the State of Israel, nor particularly the policies of the Jewish
supporters of Israel in the diaspora, could be understood unless
the deeper influence of those laws, and the worldview which
they both create and express is taken into account. The actual
policies Israel pursued after the Six Day War, and in particular
the apartheid character of the Israeli regime in the Occupied
Territories and the attitude of the majority of Jews to the issue
of the rights of the Palestinians, even in the abstract, have merely
strengthened this conviction.

By making this statement I am not trying to ignore the political
or strategic considerations which may have also influenced the
rulers of Israel. I am merely saying that actual politics is an
interaction between realistic considerations (whether valid or
mistaken, whether moral or immoral in my view) and ideological
influences. The latter tend to be more influential the less they are
discussed and ‘dragged into the light’. Any form of racism, dis¬
crimination and xenophobia becomes more potent and politically
influential if it is taken for granted by the society which indulges
in it. This is especially so if its discussion is prohibited, either
formally or by tacit agreement. When racism, discrimination and
xenophobia is prevalent among Jews, and directed against non-
Jews, being fuelled by religious motivations, it is like its opposite
case, that of antisemitism and its religious motivations. Today,
however, while the second is being discussed, the very existence of
the first is generally ignored, more outside Israel than within it.

A CLOSED UTOPIA? 3

Defining the Jewish State

Without a discussion of the prevalent Jewish attitudes to non-
Jews, even the concept of Israel as ‘a Jewish state’, as Israel
formally defines itself, cannot be understood. The widespread
misconception that Israel, even without considering its regime
in the Occupied Territories, is a true democracy arises from the
refusal to confront the significance of the term ‘a Jewish state’
for non-Jews. In my view, Israel as a Jewish state constitutes a
danger not only to itself and its inhabitants, but to all Jews and to
all other peoples and states in the Middle East and beyond. I also
consider that other Middle Eastern states or entities which define
themselves as ‘Arab’ or ‘Muslim’, like the Israeli self-definition
as being ‘Jewish’, likewise constitute a danger. However, while
this danger is widely discussed, the danger inherent in the Jewish
character of the State of Israel is not.

The principle of Israel as ‘a Jewish state’ was supremely
important to Israeli politicians from the inception of the state and
was inculcated into the Jewish population by all conceivable ways.
When, in the early 1980s, a tiny minority of Israeli Jews emerged
which opposed this concept, a Constitutional Law (that is, a law
overriding provisions of other laws, which cannot be revoked
except by a special procedure) was passed in 1985 by an enormous
majority of the Knesset. By this law no party whose programme
openly opposes the principle of ‘a Jewish state’, or proposes to
change it by democratic means, is allowed to participate in the
elections to the Knesset. I myself strongly oppose this constitu¬
tional principle. The legal consequence for me is that I cannot
belong, in the state of which I am a citizen, to a party having
principles with which I would agree and which is allowed to
participate in Knesset elections. Even this example shows that
the State of Israel is not a democracy due to the application of a
Jewish ideology directed against all non-Jews and those Jews who
oppose this ideology. But the danger which this dominant ideology
represents is not limited to domestic affairs. It also influences
Israeli foreign policies. This danger will continue to grow, as long
as two currently operating developments are being strengthened:

4 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

the increase in the Jewish character of Israel and the increase
in its power, particularly in nuclear power. Another ominous
factor is that Israeli influence in the USA political establishment
is also increasing. Hence accurate information about Judaism,
and especially about the treatment of non-Jews by Israel, is now
not only important, but politically vital as well.

Let me begin with the official Israeli definition of the term
‘Jewish’, illustrating the crucial difference between Israel as ‘a
Jewish state’ and the majority of other states. By this official
definition, Israel ‘belongs’ to persons who are defined by the Israeli
authorities as ‘Jewish’, irrespective of where they live, and to them
alone. On the other hand, Israel doesn’t officially ‘belong’ to its
non-Jewish citizens, whose status is considered even officially as
inferior. This means in practice that if members of a Peruvian tribe
are converted to Judaism, and thus regarded as Jewish, they are
entitled at once to become Israeli citizens and benefit from the
approximately 70 per cent of the West Bank land (and the 92 per
cent of the area of Israel proper), officially designated only for
the benefit of Jews. All non-Jews, (not only all Palestinians) are
prohibited from benefiting from those lands. (The prohibition
applies even to Israeli Arabs who served in the Israeli army and
reached a high rank.) The case involving Peruvian converts to
Judaism actually occurred a few years ago. The newly-created
Jews were settled in the West Bank, near Nablus, on land from
which non-Jews are officially excluded. All Israeli governments are
taking enormous political risks, including the risk of war, so that
such settlements, composed exclusively of persons who are defined
as ‘Jewish’ (and not ‘Israeli’ as most of the media mendaciously
claims) would be subject to only ‘Jewish’ authority.

I suspect that the Jews of the USA or of Britain would regard
it as antisemitic if Christians would propose that the USA or the
United Kingdom should become a ‘Christian state’, belonging
only to citizens officially defined as ‘Christians’. The consequence
of such doctrine is that Jews converting to Christianity would
become full citizens because of their conversion. It should be
recalled that the benefits of conversions are well known to Jews
from their own history. When the Christian and the Islamic

A CLOSED UTOPIA? 5

states used to discriminate against all persons not belonging to
the religion of the state, including the Jews, the discrimination
against Jews was at once removed by their conversion. But a
non-Jew discriminated against by the State of Israel will cease
to be so treated the moment he or she converts to Judaism. This
simply shows that the same kind of exclusivity that is regarded
by a majority of the diaspora Jews as antisemitic is regarded by
the majority of all Jews as Jewish. To oppose both antisemitism
and Jewish chauvinism is widely regarded among Jews as a ‘self-
hatred’, a concept which I regard as nonsensical.

The meaning of the term ‘Jewish’ and its cognates, including
‘Judaism’, thus becomes in the context of Israeli politics as
important as the meaning of ‘Islamic’ when officially used by
Iran or ‘communist’ when it was officially used by the USSR.
However, the meaning of the term ‘Jewish’ as it is popularly
used is not clear, either in Hebrew or when translated into other
languages, and so the term had to be defined officially.

According to Israeli law a person is considered ‘Jewish’ if
either their mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and great-
great-grandmother were Jewesses by religion; or if the person
was converted to Judaism in a way satisfactory to the Israeli
authorities, and on condition that the person has not converted
from Judaism to another religion, in which case Israel ceases to
regard them as ‘Jewish’. Of the three conditions, the first represents
the Talmudic definition of ‘who is a Jew’, a definition followed by
Jewish Orthodoxy. The Talmud and post-Talmudic rabbinic law
also recognise the conversion of a non-Jew to Judaism (as well as
the purchase of a non-Jewish slave by a Jew followed by a different
kind of conversion) as a method of becoming Jewish, provided
that the conversion is performed by authorised rabbis in a proper
manner. This ‘proper manner’ entails, for females, their inspection
by three rabbis while naked in a ‘bath of purification’, a ritual
which, although notorious to all readers of the Hebrew press, is
not often mentioned by the English media in spite of its undoubted
interest for certain readers. I hope that this book will be the
beginning of a process which will rectify this discrepancy.

6 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

But there is another urgent necessity for an official definition
of who is, and who is not ‘Jewish’. The State of Israel officially
discriminates in favour of Jews and against non-Jews in many
domains of life, of which I regard three as being most important:
residency rights, the right to work and the right to equality before
the law. Discrimination in residency is based on the fact that
about 92 per cent of Israel’s land is the property of the state
and is administered by the Israel Land Authority according to
regulations issued by the Jewish National Fund (JNF), an affiliate
of the World Zionist Organization. In its regulations the JNF
denies the right to reside, to open a business, and often also to
work, to anyone who is not Jewish, only because he is not Jewish.
At the same time, Jews are not prohibited from taking residence or
opening businesses anywhere in Israel. If applied in another state
against the Jews, such discriminatory practice would instantly and
justifiably be labelled antisemitism and would no doubt spark
massive public protests. When applied by Israel as a part of its
‘Jewish ideology’, they are usually studiously ignored or excused
when rarely mentioned.

The denial of the right to work means that non-Jews are
prohibited officially from working on land administered by the
Israel Land Authority according to the JNF regulations. No doubt
these regulations are not always, or even often, enforced but they
do exist. From time to time Israel attempts enforcement campaigns
by state authorities, as, for example, when the Agriculture Ministry
acts against ‘the pestilence of letting fruit orchards belonging
to Jews and situated on National Land [i.e., land belonging to
the State of Israel] be harvested by Arab labourers’, even if the
labourers in question are citizens of Israel. Israel also strictly
prohibits Jews settled on ‘National Land’ to sub-rent even a part
of their land to Arabs, even for a short time; and those who do
so are punished, usually by heavy fines. There is no prohibition
on non-Jews renting their land to Jews. This means, in my own
case, that by virtue of being a Jew I have the right to lease an
orchard for harvesting its produce from another Jew, but a non-
Jew, whether a citizen of Israel or a resident alien, does not have
this right.

A CLOSED UTOPIA? 7

Non-Jewish citizens of Israel do not have the right to equality
before the law. This discrimination is expressed in many Israeli
laws in which, presumably in order to avoid embarrassment, the
terms ‘Jewish’ and ‘non-Jewish’ are usually not explicitly stated, as
they are in the crucial Law of Return. According to that law only
persons officially recognised as ‘Jewish’ have an automatic right
of entry to Israel and of settling in it. They automatically receive
an ‘immigration certificate’ which provides them on arrival with
‘citizenship by virtue of having returned to the Jewish homeland’,
and with the right to many financial benefits, which vary somewhat
according to the country from which they emigrated. The Jews
who emigrate from the states of the former USSR receive ‘an
absorption grant’ of more than $20,000 per family. All Jews
immigrating to Israel according to this law immediately acquire
the right to vote in elections and to be elected to the Knesset - even
if they do not speak a word of Hebrew.

Other Israeli laws substitute the more obtuse expressions
‘anyone who can immigrate in accordance with the Law of Return’
and ‘anyone who is not entitled to immigrate in accordance with
the Law of Return’. Depending on the law in question, benefits
are then granted to the first category and systematically denied
to the second. The routine means for enforcing discrimination in
everyday life is the ID card, which everyone is obliged to carry at
all times. ID cards list the official ‘nationality’ of a person, which
can be ‘Jewish’, ‘Arab’, ‘Druze’ and the like, with the significant
exception of ‘Israeli’. Attempts to force the Interior Minister to
allow Israelis wishing to be officially described as ‘Israeli’, or
even as ‘Israeli-Jew’ in their ID cards have failed. Those who
have attempted to do so have received a letter from the Ministry
of the Interior stating that ‘it was decided not to recognise an
Israeli nationality’. The letter does not specify who made this
decision or when.

There are so many laws and regulations in Israel which
discriminate in favour of the persons defined as those ‘who can
immigrate in accordance with the Law of Return’ that the subject
demands separate treatment. We can look here at one example,
seemingly trivial in comparison with residence restrictions, but

8 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

nevertheless important since it reveals the real intentions of the
Israeli legislator. Israeli citizens who left the country for a time
but who are defined as those who ‘can immigrate in accordance
with the Law of Return’ are eligible on their return to generous
customs benefits, to receive subsidy for their children’s high school
education, and to receive either a grant or a loan on easy terms for
the purchase of an apartment, as well as other benefits. Citizens
who cannot be so defined, in other words, the non-Jewish citizens
of Israel, get none of these benefits. The obvious intention of such
discriminatory measures is to decrease the number of non-Jewish
citizens of Israel, in order to make Israel a more ‘Jewish’ state.

The Ideology of 'Redeemed' Land

Israel also propagates among its Jewish citizens an exclusivist
ideology of the Redemption of Land. Its official aim of minimising
the number of non-Jews can be well perceived in this ideology,
which is inculcated to Jewish schoolchildren in Israel. They are
taught that it is applicable to the entire extent of either the State
of Israel or, after 1 967, to what is referred to as the Land of Israel.
According to this ideology, the land which has been ‘redeemed’ is
the land which has passed from non-Jewish to Jewish ownership.
The ownership can be either private, or belong to either the JNF
or the Jewish state. The land which belongs to non-Jews is, on
the contrary, considered to be ‘unredeemed’. Thus, if a Jew who
committed the blackest crimes which can be imagined buys a
piece of land from a virtuous non-Jew, the ‘unredeemed’ land
becomes ‘redeemed’ by such a transaction. However, if a virtuous
non-Jew purchases land from the worst Jew, the formerly pure
and ‘redeemed’ land becomes ‘unredeemed’ again. The logical
conclusion of such an ideology is the expulsion, called ‘transfer’,
of all non-Jews from the area of land which has to be ‘redeemed’.
Therefore the Utopia of the ‘Jewish ideology’ adopted by the State
of Israel is a land which is wholly ‘redeemed’ and none of it is
owned or worked by non-Jews. The leaders of the Zionist labour
movement expressed this utterly repellent idea with the greatest
clarity. Walter Laquer, a devoted Zionist, tells in his History of

A CLOSED UTOPIA? 9

Zionism 1 how one of these spiritual fathers, A.D. Gordon, who
died in 1919, ‘objected to violence in principle and justified self
defence only in extreme circumstances. But he and his friends
wanted every tree and every bush in the Jewish homeland to
be planted by nobody else except Jewish pioneers.’ This means
that they wanted everybody else to just go away and leave the
land to be ‘redeemed’ by Jews. Gordon’s successors added more
violence than he intended but the principle of ‘redemption’ and
its consequences have remained.

In the same way, the kibbutz, widely hailed as an attempt
to create a Utopia, was and is an exclusivist Utopia; even if it
is composed of atheists, it does not accept Arab members on
principle and demands that potential members from other
nationalities be first converted to Judaism. No wonder the kibbutz
boys can be regarded as the most militaristic segment of the Israeli
Jewish society.

It is this exclusivist ideology, rather than all the ‘security needs’
alleged by Israeli propaganda, which determines the takeovers
of land in Israel in the 1950s and again in the mid-1960s and in
the Occupied Territories after 1967. This ideology also dictated
official Israeli plans for ‘the Judaization of Galilee’. This curious
term means encouraging Jews to settle in Galilee by giving them
financial benefits. (I wonder what would be the reaction of US
Jews if a plan for ‘the Christianization of New York’, or even
only of Brooklyn, would be proposed in their country.) But the
Redemption of the Land implies more than regional ‘Judaization’.
In the entire area of Israel the JNF, vigorously backed by Israeli
state agencies (especially by the secret police) is spending great
sums of public money in order to ‘redeem’ any land which non-
Jews are willing to sell, and to preempt any attempt by a Jew to
sell his land to a non-Jew by paying him a higher price.

Israeli Expansionism

The main danger which Israel, as ‘a Jewish state’, poses to its own
people, to other Jews and to its neighbours, is its ideologically
motivated pursuit of territorial expansion and the inevitable series

10 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

of wars resulting from this aim. The more Israel becomes Jewish
or, as one says in Hebrew, the more it ‘returns to Judaism’ (a
process which has been under way in Israel at least since 1967),
the more its actual politics are guided by Jewish ideological con¬
siderations and less by rational ones. My use of the term ‘rational’
does not refer here to a moral evaluation of Israeli policies, or
to the supposed defence or security needs of Israel - even less so
to the supposed needs of ‘Israeli survival’. I am referring here to
Israeli imperial policies based on its presumed interests. However
morally bad or politically crass such policies are, I regard the
adoption of policies based on ‘Jewish ideology’, in all its different
versions as being even worse. The ideological defences of Israeli
policies are usually based on Jewish religious beliefs or, in the
case of secular Jews, on the ‘historical rights’ of the Jews, which
derive from those beliefs and retain the dogmatic character of
religious faith.

My own early political conversion from admirer of Ben-Gurion
to his dedicated opponent began exactly with such an issue. In
1956 1 eagerly swallowed all of Ben-Gurion’s political and military
reasons for Israel initiating the Suez War, until he (in spite of
being an atheist, proud of his disregard of the commandments
of Jewish religion) pronounced in the Knesset on the third day
of that war, that the real reason for it is ‘the restoration of the
kingdom of David and Solomon’ to its Biblical borders. At this
point in his speech, almost every Knesset member spontaneously
rose and sang the Israeli national anthem. To my knowledge, no
zionist politician has ever repudiated Ben-Gurion’s idea that Israeli
policies must be based (within the limits of pragmatic considera¬
tions) on the restoration of the Biblical borders as the borders of
the Jewish state. Indeed, close analysis of Israeli grand strategies
and actual principles of foreign policy, as they are expressed in
Hebrew, makes it clear that it is ‘Jewish ideology’, more than
any other factor, which determines actual Israeli policies. The
disregard of Judaism as it really is and of ‘Jewish ideology’ makes
those policies incomprehensible to foreign observers who usually
know nothing about Judaism except crude apologetics.

A CLOSED UTOPIA? 11

Let me give a more recent illustration of the essential difference
which exists between Israeli imperial planning of the most inflated
but secular type, and the principles of ‘Jewish ideology’. The latter
enjoins that land which was either ruled by any Jewish ruler in
ancient times or was promised by God to the Jews, either in the
Bible or - what is actually more important politically - according
to a rabbinic interpretation of the Bible and the Talmud, should
belong to Israel since it is a Jewish state. No doubt, many Jewish
‘doves’ are of the opinion that such conquest should be deferred
to a time when Israel will be stronger than it is now, or that
there would be, hopefully, ‘a peaceful conquest’, that is, that the
Arab rulers or peoples would be ‘persuaded’ to cede the land in
question in return for benefits which the Jewish state would then
confer on them.

A number of discrepant versions of Biblical borders of the
Land of Israel, which rabbinical authorities interpret as ideally
belonging to the Jewish state, are in circulation. The most far-
reaching among them include the following areas within these
borders: in the south, all of Sinai and a part of northern Egypt
up to the environs of Cairo; in the east, all of Jordan and a large
chunk of Saudi Arabia, all of Kuwait and a part of Iraq south
of the Euphrates; in the north, all of Lebanon and all of Syria
together with a huge part of Turkey (up to lake Van); and in
the west, Cyprus. An enormous body of research and learned
discussion based on these borders, embodied in atlases, books,
articles and more popular forms of propaganda is being published
in Israel, often with state subsidies, or other forms of support.
Certainly the late Kahane and his followers, as well as influential
bodies such as Gush Emunim, not only desire the conquest of
those territories by Israel, but regard it as a divinely commanded
act, sure to be successful since it will be aided by God. In fact,
important Jewish religious figures regard the Israeli refusal to
undertake such a holy war, or even worse, the return of Sinai
to Egypt, as a national sin which was justly punished by God.
One of the more influential Gush Emunim rabbis, Dov Lior, the
rabbi of Jewish settlements of Kiryat Arba and of Hebron, stated
repeatedly that the Israeli failure to conquer Lebanon in 1982-5

12 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

was a well-merited divine punishment for its sin of ‘giving a part
of Land of Israel’, namely Sinai, to Egypt.

Although I have chosen an admittedly extreme example of the
Biblical borders of the Land of Israel which ‘belong’ to the ‘Jewish
state’, those borders are quite popular in national-religious circles.
There are less extreme versions of Biblical borders, sometimes also
called ‘historical borders’. It should however be emphasised that
within Israel and the community of its diaspora Jewish supporters,
the validity of the concept of either Biblical borders or historical
borders as delineating the borders of land which belongs to Jews
by right is not denied on grounds of principle, except by the tiny
minority which opposes the concept of a Jewish state. Otherwise,
objections to the realisation of such borders by a war are purely
pragmatical. One can claim that Israel is now too weak to conquer
all the land which ‘belongs’ to the Jews, or that the loss of Jewish
lives (but not of Arab lives!) entailed in a war of conquest of such
magnitude is more important than the conquest of the land, but
in normative Judaism one cannot claim that ‘the Land of Israel’,
in whatever borders, does not ‘belong’ to all the Jews. In May
1993, Ariel Sharon formally proposed in the Likud Convention
that Israel should adopt the ‘Biblical borders’ concept as its official
policy. There were rather few objections to this proposal, either in
the Likud or outside it, and all were based on pragmatic grounds.
No one even asked Sharon where exactly are the Biblical borders
which he was urging that Israel should attain. Let us recall that
among those who called themselves Leninists there was no doubt
that history follows the principles laid out by Marx and Lenin.
It is not only the belief itself, however dogmatic, but the refusal
that it should ever be doubted, by thwarting open discussion,
which creates a totalitarian cast of mind. Israeli-Jewish society
and diaspora Jews who are leading ‘Jewish lives’ and organised
in purely Jewish organisations, can be said therefore to have a
strong streak of totalitarianism in their character.

However, an Israeli grand strategy, not based on the tenets of
‘Jewish ideology’, but based on purely strategic or imperial con¬
siderations had also developed since the inception of the state.
An authoritative and lucid description of the principles governing

A CLOSED UTOPIA? 13

such strategy was given by General (Reserves) Shlomo Gazit, a
former Military Intelligence commander.2 According to Gazit,

Israel's main task has not changed at all [since the demise of the USSR] and
it remains of crucial importance. The geographical location of Israel at the
centre of the Arab-Muslim Middle East predestines Israel to be a devoted
guardian of stability in all the countries surrounding it. Its [role] is to protect
the existing regimes: to prevent or halt the processes of radicalisation, and
to block the expansion of fundamentalist religious zealotry.

For this purpose Israel will prevent changes occurring beyond Israel's borders
[which it] will regard as intolerable, to the point of feeling compelled to use
all its military power for the sake of their prevention or eradication.

In other words, Israel aims at imposing a hegemony on other
Middle Eastern states. Needless to say, according to Gazit, Israel
has a benevolent concern for the stability of Arab regimes. In
Gazit’s view, by protecting Middle Eastern regimes, Israel performs
a vital service for ‘the industrially advanced states, all of which
are keenly concerned with guaranteeing the stability in the Middle
East’. He argues that without Israel the existing regimes of the
region would have collapsed long ago and that they remain in
existence only because of Israeli threats. While this view may
be hypocritical, one should recall in such contexts La Roche-
foucault’s maxim that ‘hypocrisy is the tax which wickedness
pays to virtue’. Redemption of the Land is an attempt to evade
paying any such a tax.

Needless to say, I also oppose root and branch the Israeli non-
ideological policies as they are so lucidly and correctly explained
by Gazit. At the same time, I recognise that the dangers of the
policies of Ben-Gurion or Sharon, motivated by ‘Jewish ideology’,
are much worse than merely imperial policies, however criminal.
The results of policies of other ideologically motivated regimes
point in the same direction. The existence of an important
component of Israeli policy, which is based on ‘Jewish ideology’
makes its analysis politically imperative. This ideology is, in turn,
based on the attitudes of historic Judaism to non-Jews, one of the
main themes of this book. Those attitudes necessarily influence

14 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

many Jews, consciously or unconsciously. Our task here is to
discuss historic Judaism in real terms.

The influence of ‘Jewish ideology’ on many Jews will be stronger
the more it is hidden from public discussion. Such discussion
will, it is hoped, lead people to take the same attitude towards
Jewish chauvinism and the contempt displayed by so many Jews
towards non-Jews (which will be documented below) as that
commonly taken towards antisemitism and all other forms of
xenophobia, chauvinism and racism. It is justly assumed that
only the full exposition, not only of antisemitism, but also of its
historical roots, can be the basis of struggle against it. Likewise I
am assuming that only the full exposition of Jewish chauvinism
and religious fanaticism can be the basis of struggle against those
phenomena. This is especially true today when, contrary to the
situation prevailing fifty or sixty years ago, the political influence
of Jewish chauvinism and religious fanaticism is much greater
than that of antisemitism. But there is also another important
consideration. I strongly believe that antisemitism and Jewish
chauvinism can only be fought simultaneously.

A Closed Utopia?

Until such attitudes are widely adopted, the actual danger of
Israeli policies based on ‘Jewish ideology’ remains greater than the
danger of policies based on purely strategic considerations. The
difference between the two kinds of policies was well expressed by
Hugh Trevor-Roper in his essay ‘Sir Thomas More and Utopia’3
in which he termed them Platonic and Machiavellian:

Machiavelli at least apologized for the methods which he thought necessary
in politics. He regretted the necessity of force and fraud and did not call
them by any other name. But Plato and More sanctified them, provided
that they were used to sustain their own Utopian republics.

In a similar way true believers in that Utopia called the ‘Jewish
state’, which will strive to achieve the ‘Biblical borders’, are more
dangerous than the grand strategists of Gazit’s type because their
policies are being sanctified either by the use of religion or, worse,

A CLOSED UTOPIA? 15

by the use of secularised religious principles which retain absolute
validity. While Gazit at least sees a need to argue that the Israeli
diktat benefits the Arab regimes, Ben-Gurion did not pretend that
the re-establishment of the kingdom of David and Solomon will
benefit anybody except the Jewish state.

Using the concepts of Platonism to analyse Israeli policies based
on ‘Jewish ideology’ should not seem strange. It was noticed
by several scholars, of whom the most important was Moses
Hadas, who claimed that the foundations of ‘classical Judaism’,
that is, of Judaism as it was established by talmudic sages, are
based on Platonic influences and especially on the image of
Sparta as it appears in Plato.4 According to Hadas, a crucial
feature of the Platonic political system, adopted by Judaism as
early as the Maccabean period (142-63 BC), was ‘that every
phase of human conduct be subjected to religious sanctions
which are in fact to be manipulated by the ruler’. There can
be no better definition of ‘classical Judaism’ and of the ways in
which the rabbis manipulated it than this Platonic definition. In
particular, Hadas claims that Judaism adopted what ‘Plato himself
summarized [as] the objectives of his program’, in the following
well-known passage:

The principal thing is that no one, man or woman, should ever be without
an officer set over him, and that none should get the mental habit of taking
any step, whether in earnest or in jest, on his individual responsibility. In
peace as in war he must live always with his eyes on his superior officer ... In
a word, we must train the mind not even to consider acting as an individual
or know how to do it. (Laws, 942 ab)

If the word ‘rabbi’ is substituted for ‘an officer’ we will have
a perfect image of classical Judaism. The latter is still deeply
influencing Israeli-Jewish society and determining to a large extent
the Israeli policies.

It was the above quoted passage which was chosen by Karl
Popper in The Open Society and Its Enemies as describing the
essence of ‘a closed society’. Historical Judaism and its two
successors, Jewish Orthodoxy and Zionism, are both sworn
enemies of the concept of the open society as applied to Israel.

16 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

A Jewish state, whether based on its present Jewish ideology or,
if it becomes even more Jewish in character than it is now, on
the principles of Jewish Orthodoxy, cannot ever contain an open
society. There are two choices which face Israeli-Jewish society.
It can become a fully closed and warlike ghetto, a Jewish Sparta,
supported by the labour of Arab helots, kept in existence by its
influence on the US political establishment and by threats to use
its nuclear power, or it can try to become an open society. The
second choice is dependent on an honest examination of its Jewish
past, on the admission that Jewish chauvinism and exclusivism
exist, and on an honest examination of the attitudes of Judaism
towards the non-Jews.

2

PREJUDICE AND PREVARICATION

The first difficulty in writing about this subject is that the term
‘Jew’ has been used during the last 150 years with two rather
different meanings. To understand this, let us imagine ourselves
in the year 1780. Then the universally accepted meaning of the
term ‘Jew’ basically coincided with what the Jews themselves
understood as constituting their own identity. This identity was
primarily religious, but the precepts of religion governed the
details of daily behaviour in all aspects of life, both social and
private, among the Jews themselves as well as in their relation to
non-Jews. It was then literally true that a Jew could not even drink
a glass of water in the home of a non-Jew. And the same basic laws
of behaviour towards non-Jews were equally valid from Yemen
to New York. Whatever the term by which the Jews of 1780 may
be described - and I do not wish to enter into a metaphysical
dispute about terms like, ‘nation’ and ‘people’1 - it is clear that
all Jewish communities at that time were separate from the non-
Jewish societies in the midst of which they were living.

However, all this was changed by two parallel processes -
beginning in Holland and England, continuing in revolutionary
France and in countries which followed the example of the
French Revolution, and then in the modern monarchies of the
19th century: the Jews gained a significant level of individual
rights (in some cases full legal equality), and the legal power of
the Jewish community over its members was destroyed. It should
be noted that both developments were simultaneous, and that
the latter is even more important, albeit less widely known, than
the former.

17

18 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

Since the time of the late Roman Empire, Jewish communities
had considerable legal powers over their members. Not only
powers which arise through voluntary mobilisation of social
pressure (for example refusal to have any dealing whatsoever with
an excommunicated Jew or even to bury his body), but a power
of naked coercion: to flog, to imprison, to expel - all this could
be inflicted quite legally on an individual Jew by the rabbinical
courts for all kinds of offences. In many countries - Spain and
Poland are notable examples - even capital punishment could be
and was inflicted, sometimes using particularly cruel methods such
as flogging to death. All this was not only permitted but positively
encouraged by the state authorities in both Christian and Muslim
countries, who besides their general interest in preserving ‘law and
order’ had in some cases a more direct financial interest as well.
For example, in Spanish archives dating from the 13th and 14th
centuries there are records of many detailed orders issued by those
most devout Catholic Kings of Castile and Aragon, instructing
their no less devout officials to co-operate with the rabbis in
enforcing observance of the Sabbath by the Jews. Why? Because
whenever a Jew was fined by a rabbinical court for violating the
Sabbath, the rabbis had to hand nine tenths of the fine over to the
king - a very profitable and effective arrangement. Similarly, one
can quote from the responsa written shortly before 1832 by the
famous Rabbi Moshe Sofer of Pressburg (now Bratislava), in what
was then the autonomous Hungarian Kingdom in the Austrian
Empire, and addressed to Vienna in Austria proper, where the
Jews had already been granted some considerable individual
rights.2 He laments the fact that since the Jewish congregation in
Vienna lost its powers to punish offenders, the Jews there have
become lax in matters of religious observance, and adds: ‘Here
in Pressburg, when I am told that a Jewish shopkeeper dared to
open his shop during the Lesser Holidays, I immediately send a
policeman to imprison him.’

This was the most important social fact of Jewish existence
before the advent of the modern state: observance of the religious
laws of Judaism, as well as their inculcation through education,
were enforced on Jews by physical coercion, from which one

PREJUDICE AND PREVARICATION 19

could only escape by conversion to the religion of the majority,
amounting in the circumstances to a total social break and for that
reason very impracticable, except during a religious crisis.3

However, once the modern state had come into existence, the
Jewish community lost its powers to punish or intimidate the
individual Jew. The bonds of one of the most closed of ‘closed
societies’, one of the most totalitarian societies in the whole
history of mankind were snapped. This act of liberation came
mostly from outside ; although there were some Jews who helped
it from within, these were at first very few. This form of liberation
had very grave consequences for the future. Just as in the case of
Germany (according to the masterly analysis of A.J.P. Taylor) it
was easy to ally the cause of reaction with patriotism, because
in actual fact individual rights and equality before the law were
brought into Germany by the armies of the French Revolution and
of Napoleon, and one could brand liberty as ‘un-German’, exactly
so it turned out to be very easy among the Jews, particularly in
Israel, to mount a very effective attack against all the notions and
ideals of humanism and the rule of law (not to say democracy)
as something ‘un-Jewish’ or ‘anti-Jewish’ - as indeed they are, in
a historical sense - and as principles which may be used in the
‘Jewish interest’, but which have no validity against the ‘Jewish
interest’, for example when Arabs invoke these same principles.
This has also led - again just as in Germany and other nations
of Mitteleuropa - to a deceitful, sentimental and ultra-romantic
Jewish historiography, from which all inconvenient facts have
been expunged.

So one will not find in Hannah Arendt’s voluminous writings,
whether on totalitarianism or on Jews, or on both,4 the smallest
hint as to what Jewish society in Germany was really like in
the 18th century: burning of books, persecution of writers,
disputes about the magic powers of amulets, bans on the most
elementary ‘non-Jewish’ education such as the teaching of correct
German or indeed German written in the Latin alphabet.5 Nor
can one find in the numerous English-language ‘Jewish histories’
the elementary facts about the attitude of Jewish mysticism (so
fashionable at present in certain quarters) to non-Jews: that they

20 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

are considered to be, literally, limbs of Satan, and that the few
non-satanic individuals among them (that is, those who convert
to Judaism) are in reality ‘Jewish souls’ who got lost when Satan
violated the Holy Lady (Shekhinab or Matronit, one of the female
components of the Godhead, sister and wife of the younger male
God according to the cabbala) in her heavenly abode. The great
authorities, such as Gershom Scholem, have lent their authority
to a system of deceptions in all the ‘sensitive’ areas, the more
popular ones being the most dishonest and misleading.

But the social consequence of this process of liberalisation was
that, for the first time since about AD 200, 6 a Jew could be free
to do what he liked, within the bounds of his country’s civil
law, without having to pay for this freedom by converting to
another religion. The freedom to learn and read books in modern
languages, the freedom to read and write books in Hebrew
not approved by the rabbis (as any Hebrew or Yiddish book
previously had to be), the freedom to eat non-kosher food, the
freedom to ignore the numerous absurd taboos regulating sexual
life, even the freedom to think - for ‘forbidden thoughts’ are
among the most serious sins - all these were granted to the Jews
of Europe (and subsequently of other countries) by modern or
even absolutist European regimes, although the latter were at the
same time antisemitic and oppressive. Nicholas I of Russia was
a notorious antisemite and issued many laws against the Jews of
his state. But he also strengthened the forces of ‘law and order’ in
Russia - not only the secret police but also the regular police and
the gendarmerie - with the consequence that it became difficult
to murder Jews on the order of their rabbis, whereas in pre-1795
Poland it had been quite easy. ‘Official’ Jewish history condemns
him on both counts. For example, in the late 1830s a ‘Holy
Rabbi’ (Tzadik) in a small Jewish town in the Ukraine ordered
the murder of a heretic by throwing him into the boiling water
of the town baths, and contemporary Jewish sources note with
astonishment and horror that bribery was ‘no longer effective’ and
that not only the actual perpetrators but also the Holy Man were
severely punished. The Metternich regime of pre-1848 Austria was
notoriously reactionary and quite unfriendly to Jews, but it did not

PREJUDICE AND PREVARICATION 21

allow people, even liberal Jewish rabbis, to be poisoned. During
1848, when the regime’s power was temporarily weakened, the
first thing the leaders of the Jewish community in the Galician city
of Lemberg (now Lvov) did with their newly regained freedom
was to poison the liberal rabbi of the city, whom the tiny non-
Orthodox Jewish group in the city had imported from Germany.
One of his greatest heresies, by the way, was the advocacy and
actual performance of the Bar Mitzvah ceremony, which had
recently been invented.

Liberation from Outside

In the last 150 years, the term ‘Jew’ has therefore acquired a dual
meaning, to the great confusion of some well-meaning people,
particularly in the English-speaking countries, who imagine that
the Jews they meet socially are ‘representative’ of Jews ‘in general’.
In the countries of east Europe as well as in the Arab world,
the Jews were liberated from the tyranny of their own religion
and of their own communities by outside forces, too late and in
circumstances too unfavourable for genuine internalised social
change. In most cases, and particularly in Israel, the old concept
of society, the same ideology - especially as directed towards non-
Jews - and the same utterly false conception of history have been
preserved. This applies even to some of those Jews who joined
‘progressive’ or leftist movements. An examination of radical,
socialist and communist parties can provide many examples
of disguised Jewish chauvinists and racists, who joined these
parties merely for reasons of ‘Jewish interest’ and are, in Israel,
in favour of ‘anti-Gentile’ discrimination. One need only check
how many Jewish ‘socialists’ have managed to write about the
kibbutz without taking the trouble to mention that it is a racist
institution from which non-Jewish citizens of Israel are rigorously
excluded, to see that the phenomenon we are alluding to is by no
means uncommon.7

Avoiding labels based on ignorance or hypocrisy, we thus see
that the word ‘Jewry’ and its cognates describe two different and
even contrasting social groups, and because of current Israeli

22 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

politics the continuum between the two is disappearing fast. On
the one hand there is the traditional totalitarian meaning discussed
above; on the other hand there are Jews by descent who have
internalised the complex of ideas which Karl Popper has called
‘the open society’. (There are also some, particularly in the USA,
who have not internalised these ideas, but try to make a show
of acceptance.)

It is important to note that all the supposedly ‘Jewish char¬
acteristics’ - by which I mean the traits which vulgar so-called
intellectuals in the West attribute to ‘the Jews’ - are modern char¬
acteristics, quite unknown during most of Jewish history, and
appeared only when the totalitarian Jewish community began
to lose its power. Take, for example, the famous Jewish sense
of humour. Not only is humour very rare in Hebrew literature
before the 19th century (and is only found during few periods, in
countries where the Jewish upper class was relatively free from
the rabbinical yoke, such as Italy between the 14th and 17th
centuries or Muslim Spain) but humour and jokes are strictly
forbidden by the Jewish religion - except, significantly, jokes
against other religions. Satire against rabbis and leaders of the
community was never internalised by Judaism, not even to a
small extent, as it was in Latin Christianity. There were no Jewish
comedies, just as there were no comedies in Sparta, and for a
similar reason.8 Or take the love of learning. Except for a purely
religious learning, which was itself in a debased and degenerate
state, the Jews of Europe (and to a somewhat lesser extent also
of the Arab countries) were dominated, before about 1780, by a
supreme contempt and hate for all learning (excluding the Talmud
and Jewish mysticism). Large parts of the Old Testament, all
non-liturgical Hebrew poetry, most books on Jewish philosophy
were not read and their very names were often anathematised.
Study of all languages was strictly forbidden, as was the study
of mathematics and science. Geography,9 history - even Jewish
history - were completely unknown. The critical sense, which
is supposedly so characteristic of Jews, was totally absent, and
nothing was so forbidden, feared and therefore persecuted as the
most modest innovation or the most innocent criticism.

PREJUDICE AND PREVARICATION 23

It was a world sunk in the most abject superstition, fanaticism
and ignorance, a world in which the preface to the first work
on geography in Hebrew (published in 1803 in Russia) could
complain that very many great rabbis were denying the existence of
the American continent and saying that it is ‘impossible’. Between
that world and what is often taken in the West to ‘characterise’
Jews there is nothing in common except the mistaken name.

However, a great many present-day Jews are nostalgic for that
world, their lost paradise, the comfortable closed society from
which they were not so much liberated as expelled. A large part of
the zionist movement always wanted to restore it - and this part
has gained the upper hand. Many of the motives behind Israeli
politics, which so bewilder the poor confused western ‘friends
of Israel’, are perfectly explicable once they are seen simply as
reaction, reaction in the political sense which this word has had
for the last two hundred years: a forced and in many respects
innovative, and therefore illusory, return to the closed society of
the Jewish past.

Obstacles to Understanding

Historically it can be shown that a closed society is not interested
in a description of itself, no doubt because any description is in
part a form of critical analysis and so may encourage critical
‘forbidden thoughts’. The more a society becomes open, the more
it is interested in reflecting, at first descriptively and then critically,
upon itself, its present working as well as its past. But what
happens when a faction of intellectuals desires to drag a society,
which has already opened up to a considerable extent, back to its
previous totalitarian, closed condition? Then the very means of the
former progress - philosophy, the sciences, history and especially
sociology - become the most effective instruments of the ‘treason
of the intellectuals’. They are perverted in order to serve as devices
of deception, and in the process they degenerate.

Classical Judaism10 had little interest in describing or explaining
itself to the members of its own community, whether educated
(in talmudic studies) or not.11 It is significant that the writing

24 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

of Jewish history, even in the driest annalistic style, ceased
completely from the time of Josephus Flavius (end of 1st century)
until the Renaissance, when it was revived for a short time in
Italy and in other countries where the Jews were under strong
Italian influence.12 Characteristically, the rabbis feared Jewish
even more than general history, and the first modern book on
history published in Hebrew (in the 16th century) was entitled
History of the Kings of France and of the Ottoman Kings. It was
followed by some histories dealing only with the persecutions
that Jews had been subjected to. The first book on Jewish history
proper13 (dealing with ancient times) was promptly banned and
suppressed by the highest rabbinical authorities, and did not
reappear before the 19th century. The rabbinical authorities of
east Europe furthermore decreed that all non-talmudic studies are
to be forbidden, even when nothing specific could be found in them
which merits anathema, because they encroach on the time that
should be employed either in studying the Talmud or in making
money - which should be used to subsidise talmudic scholars. Only
one loophole was left, namely the time that even a pious Jew must
perforce spend in the privy. In that unclean place sacred studies
are forbidden, and it was therefore permitted to read history there,
provided it was written in Hebrew and was completely secular,
which in effect meant that it must be exclusively devoted to non-
Jewish subjects. (One can imagine that those few Jews of that time
who - no doubt tempted by Satan - developed an interest in the
history of the French kings were constantly complaining to their
neighbours about the constipation they were suffering from ...) As
a consequence, two hundred years ago the vast majority of Jews
were totally in the dark not only about the existence of America
but also about Jewish history and Jewry’s contemporary state;
and they were quite content to remain so.

A Totalitarian History

There was however one area in which they were not allowed
to remain self-contented - the area of Christian attacks against
those passages in the Talmud and the talmudic literature which

PREJUDICE AND PREVARICATION 25

are specifically anti-Christian or more generally anti-Gentile. It
is important to note that this challenge developed relatively late
in the history of Christian-Jewish relations - only from the 13th
century on. (Before that time, the Christian authorities attacked
Judaism using either Biblical or general arguments, but seemed to
be quite ignorant as to the contents of the Talmud.) The Christian
campaign against the Talmud was apparently brought on by the
conversion to Christianity of Jews who were well versed in the
Talmud and who were in many cases attracted by the development
of Christian philosophy, with its strong Aristotelian (and thus
universal) character.14

It must be admitted at the outset that the Talmud and the
talmudic literature - quite apart from the general anti-Gentile
streak that runs through them, which will be discussed in greater
detail in Chapter 5 - contain very offensive statements and
precepts directed specifically against Christianity. For example,
in addition to a series of scurrilous sexual allegations against Jesus,
the Talmud states that his punishment in hell is to be immersed in
boiling excrement - a statement not exactly calculated to endear
the Talmud to devout Christians. Or one can quote the precept
according to which Jews are instructed to burn, publicly if possible,
any copy of the New Testament that comes into their hands. (This
is not only still in force but actually practised today; thus on
23 March 1980 hundreds of copies of the New Testament were
publicly and ceremonially burnt in Jerusalem under the auspices
of Yad Le’akhim, a Jewish religious organisation subsidised by
the Israeli Ministry of Religions.)

Anyway, a powerful attack, well based in many points, against
talmudic Judaism developed in Europe from the 13th century.
We are not referring here to ignorant calumnies, such as the
blood libel, propagated by benighted monks in small provincial
cities, but to serious disputations held before the best European
universities of the time and on the whole conducted as fairly as
was possible under medieval circumstances.15

What was the Jewish - or rather the rabbinical - response? The
simplest one was the ancient weapon of bribery and string-pulling.
In most European countries, during most of the time, anything

26 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

could be fixed by a bribe. Nowhere was this maxim more true
than in the Rome of the Renaissance popes. The Editio Princeps
of the complete Code of Talmudic Law, Maimonides’ Mishneh
Torah - replete not only with the most offensive precepts against
all Gentiles but also with explicit attacks on Christianity and on
Jesus (after whose name the author adds piously, ‘May the name
of the wicked perish’) - was published unexpurgated in Rome in
the year 1480 under Sixtus IV, politically a very active pope who
had a constant and urgent need for money. (A few years earlier,
the only older edition of The Golden Ass by Apuleius from which
the violent attack on Christianity had not been removed was also
published in Rome.) Alexander VI Borgia was also very liberal
in this respect.

Even during that period, as well as before it, there were always
countries in which for a time a wave of anti-Talmud persecution set
in. But a more consistent and widespread onslaught came with the
Reformation and Counter Reformation, which induced a higher
standard of intellectual honesty as well as a better knowledge of
Hebrew among Christian scholars. From the 16th century, all the
talmudic literature, including the Talmud itself, was subjected to
Christian censorship in various countries. In Russia this went on
until 1917. Some censors, such as in Holland, were more lax,
while others were more severe; and the offensive passages were
expunged or modified.

All modern studies on Judaism, particularly by Jews, have
evolved from that conflict, and to this day they bear the
unmistakable marks of their origin: deception, apologetics or
hostile polemics, indifference or even active hostility to the pursuit
of truth. Almost all the so-called Jewish studies in Judaism, from
that time to this very day, are polemics against an external enemy
rather than an internal debate.

It is important to note that this was initially the character of
historiography in all known societies (except ancient Greece,
whose early liberal historians were attacked by later sophists for
their insufficient patriotism!). This was true of the early Catholic
and Protestant historians, who polemicised against each other.
Similarly, the earliest European national histories are imbued with

PREJUDICE AND PREVARICATION 27

the crudest nationalism and scorn for all other, neighbouring
nations. But sooner or later there comes a time when an attempt
is made to understand one’s national or religious adversary and
at the same time to criticise certain deep and important aspects of
the history of one’s own group; and both these developments go
together. Only when historiography becomes - as Pieter Geyl put it
so well - ‘a debate without end’ rather than a continuation of war
by historiographic means, only then does a humane historiogra¬
phy, which strives for both accuracy and fairness, become possible;
and it then turns into one of the most powerful instruments of
humanism and self-education.

It is for this reason that modern totalitarian regimes rewrite
history or punish historians.16 When a whole society tries to return
to totalitarianism, a totalitarian history is written, not because of
compulsion from above but under pressure from below, which
is much more effective. This is what happened in Jewish history,
and this constitutes the first obstacle we have to surmount.

Defence Mechanisms

What were the detailed mechanisms (other than bribery) employed
by Jewish communities, in cooperation with outside forces, in
order to ward off the attack on the Talmud and other religious
literature? Several methods can be distinguished, all of them
having important political consequences reflected in current Israeli
policies. Although it would be tedious to supply in each case the
Beginistic or Labour-zionist parallel, I am sure that readers who
are somewhat familiar with the details of Middle East politics
will themselves be able to notice the resemblance.

The first mechanism I shall discuss is that of surreptitious
defiance, combined with outward compliance. As explained
above, talmudic passages directed against Christianity or against
non-Jews17 had to go or to be modified - the pressure was too
strong. This is what was done: a few of the most offensive passages
were bodily removed from all editions printed in Europe after the
mid-16th century. In all other passages, the expressions ‘Gentile’,
‘non-Jew’, ‘stranger’ (goy, einoyehudi, nokhri) - which appear

28 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

in all early manuscripts and printings as well as in all editions
published in Islamic countries - were replaced by terms such as
‘idolator’, ‘heathen’ or even ‘Canaanite’ or ‘Samaritan’, terms
which could be explained away but which a Jewish reader could
recognise as euphemisms for the old expressions.

As the attack mounted, so the defence became more elaborate,
sometimes with lasting tragic results. During certain periods
the Tsarist Russian censorship became stricter and, seeing the
above-mentioned euphemisms for what they were, forbade them
too. Thereupon the rabbinical authorities substituted the terms
‘Arab’ or ‘Muslim’ (in Hebrew, Yishma’eli - which means both)
or occasionally ‘Egyptian’, correctly calculating that the Tsarist
authorities would not object to this kind of abuse. At the same
time, lists of Talmudic Omissions were circulated in manuscript
form, which explained all the new terms and pointed out all
the omissions. At times, a general disclaimer was printed before
the title page of each volume of talmudic literature, solemnly
declaring, sometimes on oath, that all hostile expressions in that
volume are intended only against the idolators of antiquity, or
even against the long-vanished Canaanites, rather than against
‘the peoples in whose land we live’. After the British conquest
of India, some rabbis hit on the subterfuge of claiming that any
particularly outrageous derogatory expression used by them is
only intended against the Indians. Occasionally the aborigines
of Australia were also added as whipping-boys.

Needless to say, all this was a calculated lie from beginning to
end; and following the establishment of the State of Israel, once
the rabbis felt secure, all the offensive passages and expressions
were restored without hesitation in all new editions. (Because of
the enormous cost which a new edition involves, a considerable
part of the talmudic literature, including the Talmud itself, is
still being reprinted from the old editions. For this reason, the
above-mentioned Talmudic Omissions have now been published
in Israel in a cheap printed edition, under the title Hesronot
Shas.) So now one can read quite freely - and Jewish children
are actually taught - passages such as that18 which commands
every Jew, whenever passing near a cemetery, to utter a blessing

PREJUDICE AND PREVARICATION 29

if the cemetery is Jewish, but to curse the mothers of the dead19 if
it is non-Jewish. In the old editions the curse was omitted, or one
of the euphemisms was substituted for ‘Gentiles’. But in the new
Israeli edition of Rabbi Adin Steinsalz (complete with Hebrew
explanations and glosses to the Aramaic parts of the text, so that
schoolchildren should be in no doubt as to what they are supposed
to say) the unambiguous words ‘Gentiles’ and ‘strangers’ have
been restored.

Under external pressure, the rabbis deceptively eliminated or
modified certain passages - but not the actual practices which are
prescribed in them. It is a fact which must be remembered, not
least by Jews themselves, that for centuries our totalitarian society
has employed barbaric and inhumane customs to poison the minds
of its members, and it is still doing so. (These inhumane customs
cannot be explained away as mere reaction to antisemitism or
persecution of Jews; they are gratuitous barbarities directed
against each and every human being. A pious Jew arriving for
the first time in Australia, say, and chancing to pass near an
Aboriginal graveyard, must - as an act of worship of ‘God’ - curse
the mothers of the dead buried there.) Without facing this real
social fact, we all become parties to the deception and accomplices
to the process of poisoning the present and future generations,
with all the consequences of this process.

The Deception Continues

Modern scholars of Judaism have not only continued the deception,
but have actually improved upon the old rabbinical methods, both
in impudence and in mendacity. I omit here the various histories
of antisemitism, as unworthy of serious consideration, and shall
give just three particular examples and one general example of
the more modern ‘scholarly’ deceptions.

In 1962, a part of the Maimonidean Code referred to above,
the so-called Book of Knowledge, which contains the most basic
rules of Jewish faith and practice, was published in Jerusalem in a
bilingual edition, with the English translation facing the Hebrew
text.20 The latter has been restored to its original purity, and the

30 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

command to exterminate Jewish infidels appears in it in full: ‘It is
a duty to exterminate them with one’s own hands.’ In the English
translation this is somewhat softened to: ‘It is a duty to take active
measures to destroy them.’ But then the Hebrew text goes on to
specify the prime examples of ‘infidels’ who must be exterminated:
‘Such as Jesus of Nazareth and his pupils, and Tzadoq and Baitos21
and their pupils, may the name of the wicked rot’. Not one word
of this appears in the English text on the facing page (78a). And,
even more significant, in spite of the wide circulation of this book
among scholars in the English-speaking countries, not one of them
has, as far as I know, protested against this glaring deception.

The second example comes from the USA, again from an English
translation of a book by Maimonides. Apart from his work on
the codification of the Talmud, he was also a philosopher and
his Guide to the Perplexed is justly considered to be the greatest
work of Jewish religious philosophy and is widely read and used
even today. Unfortunately, in addition to his attitude towards
non-Jews generally and Christians in particular, Maimonides was
also an anti-Black racist. Towards the end of the Guide, in a
crucial chapter (book III, chapter 51) he discusses how various
sections of humanity can attain the supreme religious value, the
true worship of God. Among those who are incapable of even
approaching this are:

Some of theTurks [i.e., the Mongol race] and the nomads in the North, and
the Blacks and the nomads in the South, and those who resemble them
in our climates. And their nature is like the nature of mute animals, and
according to my opinion they are not on the level of human beings, and
their level among existing things is below that of a man and above that
of a monkey, because they have the image and the resemblance of a man
more than a monkey does.

Now, what does one do with such a passage in a most important and
necessary work of Judaism? Face the truth and its consequences?
God forbid! Admit (as so many Christian scholars, for example,
have done in similar circumstances) that a very important Jewish
authority held also rabid anti-Black views, and by this admission
make an attempt at self-education in real humanity? Perish

PREJUDICE AND PREVARICATION 31

the thought. I can almost imagine Jewish scholars in the USA
consulting among themselves, ‘What is to be done?’ - for the
book had to be translated, due to the decline in the knowledge
of Hebrew among American Jews. Whether by consultation or
by individual inspiration, a happy ‘solution’ was found: in the
popular American translation of the Guide by one Friedlander,
first published as far back as 1925 and since then reprinted in
many editions, including several in paperback, the Hebrew word
Kushim, which means Blacks, was simply transliterated and
appears as ‘Kushites’, a word which means nothing to those who
have no knowledge of Hebrew, or to whom an obliging rabbi will
not give an oral explanation.22 During all these years, not a word
has been said to point out the initial deception or the social facts
underlying its continuation - and this throughout the excitement
of Martin Luther King’s campaigns, which were supported by so
many rabbis, not to mention other Jewish figures, some of whom
must have been aware of the anti-Black racist attitude which forms
part of their Jewish heritage.23

Surely one is driven to the hypothesis that quite a few of Martin
Luther King’s rabbinical supporters were either anti-Black racists
who supported him for tactical reasons of ‘Jewish interest’ (wishing
to win Black support for American Jewry and for Israel’s policies)
or were accomplished hypocrites, to the point of schizophrenia,
capable of passing very rapidly from a hidden enjoyment of rabid
racism to a proclaimed attachment to an anti-racist struggle - and
back - and back again.

The third example comes from a work which has far less serious
scholarly intent - but is all the more popular for that: The joys of
Yiddish by Leo Rosten. This light-hearted work - first published in
the USA in 1968, and reprinted in many editions, including several
times as a Penguin paperback - is a kind of glossary of Yiddish
words often used by Jews or even non-Jews in English-speaking
countries. For each entry, in addition to a detailed definition
and more or less amusing anecdotes illustrating its use, there is
also an etymology stating (quite accurately, on the whole) the
language from which the word came into Yiddish and its meaning
in that language. The entry Shaygets - whose main meaning is ‘a

32 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

Gentile boy or young man’ - is an exception: there the etymology
cryptically states ‘Hebrew origin’, without giving the form or
meaning of the original Hebrew word. However, under the entry
Shiksa - the feminine form of Shaygets - the author does give
the original Hebrew word, sheqetz (or, in his transliteration,
sheques) and defines its Hebrew meaning as ‘blemish’. This is a
bare-faced lie, as every speaker of Hebrew knows. The Megiddo
Modern Hebrew-English Dictionary, published in Israel, correctly
defines sheqetz as follows: ‘unclean animal; loathsome creature,
abomination (colloquial - pronounced shaygets) wretch, unruly
youngster; Gentile youngster’.

My final, more general example is, if possible, even more
shocking than the others. It concerns the attitude of the Hassidic
movement towards non-Jews. Hassidism - a continuation (and
debasement! ) of Jewish mysticism - is still a living movement, with
hundreds of thousands of active adherents who are fanatically
devoted to their ‘holy rabbis’, some of whom have acquired a very
considerable political influence in Israel, among the leaders of most
parties and even more so in the higher echelons of the army.

What, then, are the views of this movement concerning non-Jews?
As an example, let us take the famous Hatanya, fundamental book
of the Habbad movement, one of the most important branches
of Hassidism. According to this book, all non-Jews are totally
satanic creatures ‘in whom there is absolutely nothing good’. Even
a non-Jewish embryo is qualitatively different from a Jewish one.
The very existence of a non-Jew is ‘inessential’, whereas all of
creation was created solely for the sake of the Jews.

This book is circulated in countless editions, and its ideas are
further propagated in the numerous ‘discourses’ of the present
hereditary Fuehrer of Habbad, the so-called Lubavitcher rabbi,
M.M. Schneurssohn, who leads this powerful world-wide
organisation from his New York headquarters. In Israel these
ideas are widely disseminated among the public at large, in the
schools and in the army. (According to the testimony of Shulamit
Aloni, Member of the Knesset, this Habbad propaganda was
particularly stepped up before Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in
March 1978, in order to induce military doctors and nurses to

PREJUDICE AND PREVARICATION 33

withhold medical help from ‘Gentile wounded’. This Nazi-like
advice did not refer specifically to Arabs or Palestinians, but simply
to ‘Gentiles’, goyim.) A former Israeli President, Shazar, was an
ardent adherent of Habbad, and many top Israeli and American
politicians - headed by Prime Minister Begin - publicly courted
and supported it. This, in spite of the considerable unpopularity
of the Lubavitcher rabbi - in Israel he is widely criticised because
he refuses to come to the Holy Land even for a visit and keeps
himself in New York for obscure messianic reasons, while in New
York his anti-Black attitude is notorious.

The fact that, despite these pragmatic difficulties, Habbad can be
publicly supported by so many top political figures owes much to
the thoroughly disingenuous and misleading treatment by almost
all scholars who have written about the Hassidic movement and
its Habbad branch. This applies particularly to all who have
written or are writing about it in English. They suppress the
glaring evidence of the old Hassidic texts as well as the latter-day
political implications that follow from them, which stare in the
face of even a casual reader of the Israeli Hebrew press, in whose
pages the Lubavitcher rabbi and other Hassidic leaders constantly
publish the most rabid bloodthirsty statements and exhortations
against all Arabs.

A chief deceiver in this case, and a good example of the power of
the deception, was Martin Buber. His numerous works eulogising
the whole Hassidic movement (including Habbad) never so much
as hint at the real doctrines of Hassidism concerning non-Jews. The
crime of deception is all the greater in view of the fact that Buber’s
eulogies of Hassidism were first published in German during the
period of the rise of German nationalism and the accession of
Nazism to power. But while ostensibly opposing Nazism, Buber
glorified a movement holding and actually teaching doctrines
about non-Jews not unlike the Nazi doctrines about Jews. One
could of course argue that the Hassidic Jews of seventy or fifty
years ago were the victims, and a ‘white lie’ favouring a victim
is excusable. But the consequences of deception are incalculable.
Buber’s works were translated into Hebrew, were made a powerful
element of the Hebrew education in Israel, have greatly increased

34 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

the power of the bloodthirsty Hassidic leaders, and have thus been
an important factor in the rise of Israeli chauvinism and hate of
all non-Jews. If we think about the many human beings who died
of their wounds because Israeli army nurses, incited by Hassidic
propaganda, refused to tend them, then a heavy onus for their
blood lies on the head of Martin Buber.

I must mention here that in his adulation of Hassidism Buber
far surpassed other Jewish scholars, particularly those writing in
Hebrew (or, formerly, in Yiddish) or even in European languages
but purely for a Jewish audience. In questions of internal Jewish
interest, there had once been a great deal of justified criticism of
the Hassidic movement. Their mysogynism (much more extreme
than that common to all Jewish Orthodoxy), their indulgence
in alcohol, their fanatical cult of their hereditary ‘holy rabbis’
who extorted money from them, the numerous superstitions
peculiar to them - these and many other negative traits were
critically commented upon. But Buber’s sentimental and deceitful
romanticisation has won the day, especially in the USA and
Israel, because it was in tune with the totalitarian admiration
of anything ‘genuinely Jewish’ and because certain ‘left’ Jewish
circles in which Buber had a particularly great influence have
adopted this position.

Nor was Buber alone in his attitude, although in my opinion he
was by far the worst in the evil he propagated and the influence
he has left behind him. There was the very influential sociologist
and biblical scholar, Yehezkiel Kaufman, an advocate of genocide
on the model of the Book of Joshua, the idealist philosopher
Hugo Shmuel Bergman, who as far back as 1914-15 advocated
the expulsion of all Palestinians to Iraq, and many others. All
were outwardly ‘dovish’, but employed formulas which could
be manipulated in the most extreme anti-Arab sense, all had
tendencies to that religious mysticism which encourages the
propagation of deceptions, and all seemed to be gentle persons
who, even when advocating expulsion, racism and genocide,
seemed incapable of hurting a fly - and just for this reason the
effect of their deceptions was the greater.

PREJUDICE AND PREVARICATION 35

It is against the glorification of inhumanity, proclaimed not only
by the rabbis but by those who are supposed to be the greatest and
certainly the most influential scholars of Judaism, that we have
to struggle; and it is against those modern successors of the false
prophets and dishonest priests that we have to repeat - even in
the face of an almost unanimous opinion within Israel and among
the majority of Jews in countries such as the USA - Lucretius’
warning against surrendering one’s judgement to the declamations
of religious leaders: Tantmn religio potuit suadere malorum - ‘To
such heights of evil are men driven by religion.’ Religion is not
always (as Marx said) the opium of the people, but it can often
be so, and when it is used in this sense by prevaricating and mis¬
representing its true nature, the scholars and intellectuals who
perform this task take on the character of opium smugglers.

But we can derive from this analysis another, more general
conclusion about the most effective and horrific means of
compulsion to do evil, to cheat and to deceive and, while keeping
one’s hands quite clean of violence, to corrupt whole peoples and
drive them to oppression and murder. (For there can no longer
be any doubt that the most horrifying acts of oppression in the
West Bank are motivated by Jewish religious fanaticism.) Most
people seem to assume that the worst totalitarianism employs
physical coercion, and would refer to the imagery of Orwell’s
1984 for a model illustrating such a regime. But it seems to me
that this common view is greatly mistaken, and that the intuition
of Isaac Asimov, in whose science fiction the worst oppression
is always internalised, is the more true to the dangers of human
nature. Unlike Stalin’s tame scholars, the rabbis - and even more
so the scholars attacked here, and with them the whole mob of
equally silent middlebrows such as writers, journalists, public
figures, who lie and deceive more than them - are not facing the
danger of death or concentration camp, but only social pressure;
they lie out of patriotism because they believe that it is their duty
to lie for what they conceive to be the Jewish interest. They are
patriotic liars, and it is the same patriotism which reduces them to
silence when confronted with the discrimination and oppression
of the Palestinians.

36 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

In the present case we are also faced with another group loyalty,
but one which comes from outside the group, and which is
sometimes even more mischievous. Very many non-Jews (including
Christian clergy and religious laymen, as well as some marxists
from all marxist groups) hold the curious opinion that one way
to ‘atone’ for the persecution of Jews is not to speak out against
evil perpetrated by Jews but to participate in ‘white lies’ about
them. The crude accusation of ‘antisemitism’ (or, in the case of
Jews, ‘self-hate’) against anybody who protests at the discrimina¬
tion of Palestinians or who points out any fact about the Jewish
religion or the Jewish past which conflicts with the ‘approved
version’ comes with greater hostility and force from non-Jewish
‘friends of the Jews’ than from Jews. It is the existence and great
influence of this group in all western countries, and particularly
in the USA (as well as the other English-speaking countries) which
has allowed the rabbis and scholars of Judaism to propagate their
lies not only without opposition but with considerable help.

In fact, many professed ‘anti-stalinists’ have merely substituted
another idol for their worship, and tend to support Jewish racism
and fanaticism with even greater ardour and dishonesty than were
found among the most devoted stalinists in the past. Although this
phenomenon of blind and stalinistic support for any evil, so long
as it is ‘Jewish’, is particularly strong from 1945, when the truth
about the extermination of European Jewry became known, it is
a mistake to suppose that it began only then. On the contrary, it
dates very far back, particularly in social-democratic circles. One
of Marx’s early friends, Moses Hess, widely known and respected
as one of the first socialists in Germany, subsequently revealed
himself as an extreme Jewish racist, whose views about the ‘pure
Jewish race’ published in 1858 were not unlike comparable bilge
about the ‘pure Aryan race’. But the German socialists, who
struggled against German racism, remained silent about their
Jewish racism.

In 1944, during the actual struggle against Hitler, the British
Labour Party approved a plan for the expulsion of Palestinians
from Palestine, which was similar to Hitler’s early plans (up to
about 1941) for the Jews. This plan was approved under the

PREJUDICE AND PREVARICATION 37

pressure of Jewish members of the party’s leadership, many of
whom have displayed a stronger ‘kith and kin’ attitude to every
Israeli policy than the Conservative ‘kith and kin’ supporters of
Ian Smith ever did. But stalinistic taboos on the left are stronger
in Britain than on the right, and there is virtually no discussion
even when the Labour Party supports Begin ’s government.

In the USA a similar situation prevails, and again the American
liberals are the worst.

This is not the place to explore all the political consequences
of this situation, but we must face reality: in our struggle against
the racism and fanaticism of the Jewish religion, our greatest
enemies will be not only the Jewish racists (and users of racism)
but also those non-Jews who in other areas are known - falsely
in my opinion - as ‘progressives’.

3

ORTHODOXY AND INTERPRETATION

This chapter is devoted to a more detailed description of the
theologico-legal structure of classical Judaism.1 However, before
embarking on that description it is necessary to dispel at least some
of the many misconceptions disseminated in almost all foreign-
language (that is, non-Hebrew) accounts of Judaism, especially
by those who propagate such currently fashionable phrases as
‘the Judaeo-Christian tradition’ or ‘the common values of the
monotheistic religions’.

Because of considerations of space I shall only deal in detail with
the most important of these popular delusions: that the Jewish
religion is, and always was, monotheistic. Now, as many biblical
scholars know, and as a careful reading of the Old Testament
easily reveals, this ahistorical view is quite wrong. In many, if
not most, books of the Old Testament the existence and power
of ‘other gods’ are clearly acknowledged, but Yahweh (Jehovah),
who is the most powerful god,2 is also very jealous of his rivals
and forbids his people to worship them.3 It is only very late in
the Bible, in some of the later prophets, that the existence of all
gods other than Yahweh is denied.4

What concerns us, however, is not biblical but classical Judaism;
and it is quite clear, though much less widely realised, that the
latter, during its last few hundred years, was for the most part
far from pure monotheism. The same can be said about the real
doctrines dominant in present-day Orthodox Judaism, which is a
direct continuation of classical Judaism. The decay of monotheism
came about through the spread of Jewish mysticism (the cabbala)
which developed in the 12th and 13th centuries, and by the late
16th century had won an almost complete victory in virtually all

38

ORTHODOXY AND INTERPRETATION 39

the centres of Judaism. The Jewish Enlightenment, which arose
out of the crisis of classical Judaism, had to fight against this
mysticism and its influence more than against anything else, but
in latter-day Jewish Orthodoxy, especially among the rabbis, the
influence of the cabbala has remained predominant.5 For example,
the Gush Emunim movement is inspired to a great extent by
cabbalistic ideas.

Knowledge and understanding of these ideas is therefore
important for two reasons. First, without it one cannot understand
the true beliefs of Judaism at the end of its classical period.
Secondly, these ideas play an important contemporary political
role, inasmuch as they form part of the explicit system of beliefs
of many religious politicians, including most leaders of Gush
Emunim, and have an indirect influence on many zionist leaders
of all parties, including the zionist left.

According to the cabbala, the universe is ruled not by one
god but by several deities, of various characters and influences,
emanated by a dim, distant First Cause. Omitting many details,
one can summarise the system as follows. From the First Cause,
first a male god called ‘Wisdom’ or ‘Father’ and then a female
goddess called ‘Knowledge’ or ‘Mother’ were emanated or born.
From the marriage of these two, a pair of younger gods were
born: Son, also called by many other names such as ‘Small Face’
or ‘The Holy Blessed One’; and Daughter, also called ‘Fady’ (or
‘Matronit’, a word derived from Fatin), ‘Shekhinah’, ‘Queen’, and
so on. These two younger gods should be united, but their union
is prevented by the machinations of Satan, who in this system
is a very important and independent personage. The Creation
was undertaken by the First Cause in order to allow them to
unite, but because of the Fall they became more disunited than
ever, and indeed Satan has managed to come very close to the
divine Daughter and even to rape her (either seemingly or in fact
- opinions differ on this). The creation of the Jewish people was
undertaken in order to mend the break caused by Adam and
Eve, and under Mount Sinai this was for a moment achieved: the
male god Son, incarnated in Moses, was united with the goddess
Shekhinah. Unfortunately, the sin of the Golden Calf again caused

40 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

disunity in the godhead; but the repentance of the Jewish people
has mended matters to some extent. Similarly, each incident of
biblical Jewish history is believed to be associated with the union
or disunion of the divine pair. The Jewish conquest of Palestine
from the Canaanites and the building of the first and second
Temple are particularly propitious for their union, while the
destruction of the Temples and exile of the Jews from the Holy
Land are merely external signs not only of the divine disunion but
also of a real ‘whoring after strange gods’: Daughter falls closely
into the power of Satan, while Son takes various female satanic
personages to his bed, instead of his proper wife.

The duty of pious Jews is to restore through their prayers and
religious acts the perfect divine unity, in the form of sexual union,
between the male and female deities.6 Thus before most ritual
acts, which every devout Jew has to perform many times each day,
the following cabbalistic formula is recited: ‘For the sake of the
[sexual] congress7 of the Holy Blessed One and his Shekhinah ... ’
The Jewish morning prayers are also arranged so as to promote
this sexual union, if only temporarily. Successive parts of the
prayer mystically correspond to successive stages of the union:
at one point the goddess approaches with her handmaidens, at
another the god puts his arm around her neck and fondles her
breast, and finally the sexual act is supposed to take place.

Other prayers or religious acts, as interpreted by the cabbalists,
are designed to deceive various angels (imagined as minor deities
with a measure of independence) or to propitiate Satan. At a
certain point in the morning prayer, some verses in Aramaic
(rather than the more usual Hebrew) are pronounced.8 This is
supposed to be a means for tricking the angels who operate the
gates through which prayers enter heaven and who have the power
to block the prayers of the pious. The angels only understand
Hebrew and are baffled by the Aramaic verses; being somewhat
dull-witted (presumably they are far less clever than the cabbalists)
they open the gates, and at this moment all the prayers, including
those in Hebrew, get through. Or take another example: both
before and after a meal, a pious Jew ritually washes his hands,
uttering a special blessing. On one of these two occasions he is

ORTHODOXY AND INTERPRETATION 41

worshipping God, by promoting the divine union of Son and
Daughter; but on the other he is worshipping Satan, who likes
Jewish prayers and ritual acts so much that when he is offered a
few of them it keeps him busy for a while and he forgets to pester
the divine Daughter. Indeed, the cabbalists believe that some of
the sacrifices burnt in the Temple were intended for Satan. For
example, the seventy bullocks sacrificed during the seven days of
the feast of Tabernacles,9 were supposedly offered to Satan in his
capacity as ruler of all the Gentiles,10 in order to keep him too
busy to interfere on the eighth day, when sacrifice is made to God.
Many other examples of the same kind can be given.

Several points should be made concerning this system and its
importance for the proper understanding of Judaism, both in its
classical period and in its present political involvement in zionist
practice.

First, whatever can be said about this cabbalistic system, it
cannot be regarded as monotheistic, unless one is also prepared
to regard Flinduism, the late Graeco-Roman religion, or even the
religion of ancient Egypt, as ‘monotheistic’.

Secondly, the real nature of classical Judaism is illustrated by
the ease with which this system was adopted. Faith and beliefs
(except nationalistic beliefs) play an extremely small part in
classical Judaism. What is of prime importance is the ritual act,
rather than the significance which that act is supposed to have
or the belief attached to it. Therefore in times when a minority
of religious Jews refused to accept the cabbala (as is the case
today), one could see some few Jews performing a given religious
ritual believing it to be an act of worship of God, while others do
exactly the same thing with the intention of propitiating Satan
- but so long as the act is the same they would pray together and
remain members of the same congregation, however much they
might dislike each other. But if instead of the intention attached
to the ritual washing of hands anyone would dare to introduce
an innovation in the manner of washing,11 a real schism would
certainly ensue.

The same can be said about all sacred formulas of Judaism.
Provided the working is left intact, the meaning is at best a

42 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

secondary matter. For example, perhaps the most sacred Jewish
formula, ‘Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one’,
recited several times each day by every pious Jew, can at the present
time mean two contrary things. It can mean that the Lord is indeed
‘one’; but it can also mean that a certain stage in the union of the
male and female deities has been reached or is being promoted by
the proper recitation of this formula. However, when Jews of a
Reformed congregation recite this formula in any language other
than Hebrew, all Orthodox rabbis, whether they believe in unity
or in the divine sexual union, are very angry indeed.

Finally, all this is of considerable importance in Israel (and in
other Jewish centres) even at present. The enormous significance
attached to mere formulas (such as the ‘Law of Jerusalem’); the
ideas and motivations of Gush Emunim; the urgency behind the
hate for non-Jews presently living in Palestine; the fatalistic attitude
towards all peace attempts by Arab states - all these and many
other traits of zionist politics, which puzzle so many well-meaning
people who have a false notion about classical Judaism, become
more intelligible against this religious and mystical background.
I must warn, however, against falling into the other extreme and
trying to explain all zionist politics in terms of this background.
Obviously, the latter’s influences vary in extent. Ben-Gurion was
adept at manipulating them in a controlled way for specific ends.
Under Begin the past exerts a much greater influence upon the
present. But what one should never do is to ignore the past and
its influences, because only by knowing it can one transcend its
blind power.

Interpretation of the Bible

It will be seen from the foregoing example that what most
supposedly well-informed people think they know about Judaism
may be very misleading, unless they can read Hebrew. All the
details mentioned above can be found in the original texts or,
in some cases, in modern books written in Hebrew for a rather
specialised readership. In English one would look for them in

ORTHODOXY AND INTERPRETATION 43

vain, even where the omission of such socially important facts
distorts the whole picture.

There is yet another misconception about Judaism which
is particularly common among Christians, or people heavily
influenced by Christian tradition and culture. This is the misleading
idea that Judaism is a ‘biblical religion’; that the Old Testament
has in Judaism the same central place and legal authority which
the Bible has for Protestant or even Catholic Christianity.

Again, this is connected with the question of interpretation. We
have seen that in matters of belief there is great latitude. Exactly
the opposite holds with respect to the legal interpretation of sacred
texts. Here the interpretation is rigidly fixed - but by the Talmud
rather than by the Bible itself.12 Many, perhaps most, biblical
verses prescribing religious acts and obligations are ‘understood’
by classical Judaism, and by present-day Orthodoxy, in a sense
which is quite distinct from, or even contrary to, their literal
meaning as understood by Christian or other readers of the Old
Testament, who only see the plain text. The same division exists
at present in Israel between those educated in Jewish religious
schools and those educated in ‘secular’ Hebrew schools, where on
the whole the plain meaning of the Old Testament is taught.

This important point can only be understood through examples.
It will be noted that the changes in meaning do not all go in the
same direction from the point of view of ethics, as the term is
understood now. Apologetics of Judaism claim that the interpre¬
tation of the Bible, originated by the Pharisees and fixed in the
Talmud, is always more liberal than the literal sense. But some of
the examples below show that this is far from being the case.

1 Let us start with the Decalogue itself. The Eighth
Commandment, ‘Thou shalt not steal’ ( Exodus , 20:15), is taken
to be a prohibition against ‘stealing’ (that is, kidnapping) a
Jewish person. The reason is that according to the Talmud all
acts forbidden by the Decalogue are capital offences. Stealing
property is not a capital offence (while kidnapping of Gentiles
by Jews is allowed by talmudic law) - hence the interpretation. A
virtually identical sentence - ‘Ye shall not steal’ ( Leviticus , 19:11)
- is however allowed to have its literal meaning.

44 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

2 The famous verse ‘Eye for eye, tooth for tooth’ etc. (Exodus,
21:24) is taken to mean ‘eye-money for eye’, that is payment of
a fine rather than physical retribution.

3 Here is a notorious case of turning the literal meaning into its
exact opposite. The biblical text plainly warns against following
the bandwagon in an unjust cause: ‘Thou shalt not follow a
multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline
after many to wrest judgement’ (Exodus, 23:2). The last words
of this sentence - ‘Decline after many to wrest judgement’ - are
torn out of their context and interpreted as an injunction to follow
the majority!

4 The verse ‘Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk’
(Exodus, 23:19) is interpreted as a ban on mixing any kind of
meat with any milk or milk product. Since the same verse is
repeated in two other places in the Pentateuch, the mere repetition
is taken to be a treble ban, forbidding a Jew (i) to eat such a
mixture, (ii) to cook it for any purpose and (iii) to enjoy or benefit
from it in any way.13

5 In numerous cases general terms such as ‘thy fellow’, ‘stranger’,
or even ‘man’ are taken to have an exclusivist chauvinistic
meaning. The famous verse ‘thou shalt love thy fellow14 as thyself’
(Leviticus, 19:18) is understood by classical (and present-day
Orthodox) Judaism as an injunction to love one’s fellow Jew, not
any fellow human. Similarly, the verse ‘neither shalt thou stand
against the blood of thy fellow’ (ibid., 16) is supposed to mean that
one must not stand idly by when the life (‘blood’) of a fellow Jew
is in danger; but, as will be seen in Chapter 5, a Jew is in general
forbidden to save the life of a Gentile, because ‘he is not thy fellow’.
The generous injunction to leave the gleanings of one’s field and
vineyard ‘for the poor and the stranger’ (ibid., 9-10) is interpreted
as referring exclusively to the Jewish poor and to converts to
Judaism. The taboo laws relating to corpses begin with the verse
‘This is the law, when a man dieth in a tent: all that come into the
tent ... shall be unclean seven days’ (Numbers, 19:16). But the
word ‘man’ (adam) is taken to mean ‘Jew’, so that only a Jewish
corpse is taboo (that is, both ‘unclean’ and sacred). Based on this

ORTHODOXY AND INTERPRETATION 45

interpretation, pious Jews have a tremendous magic reverence
towards Jewish corpses and Jewish cemeteries, but have no respect
towards non-Jewish corpses and cemeteries. Thus hundreds of
Muslim cemeteries have been utterly destroyed in Israel (in one
case in order to make room for the Tel- Aviv Hilton) but there was
a great outcry because the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives
was damaged under Jordanian rule. Examples of this kind are too
numerous to quote. Some of the inhuman consequences of this
type of interpretation will be discussed in Chapter 5.

6 Finally, consider one of the most beautiful prophetic passages,
Isaiah’s magnificent condemnation of hypocrisy and empty ritual,
and exhortation to common decency. One verse (Isaiah, 1:15)
in this passage is: ‘And when ye spread forth your hands, I will
hide mine eyes from you; yea, when ye make many prayers, I
will not hear: your hands are full of blood.’ Since Jewish priests
‘spread their hands’ when blessing the people during service, this
verse is supposed to mean that a priest who commits accidental
homicide is disqualified from ‘spreading his hands’ in blessing
(even if repentant) because they are ‘full of blood’.

It is quite clear even from these examples that when Orthodox
Jews today (or all Jews before about 1780) read the Bible, they
are reading a very different book, with a totally different meaning,
from the Bible as read by non-Jews or non-Orthodox Jews. This
distinction applies even in Israel, although both parties read the
text in Hebrew. Experience, particularly since 1967, has repeatedly
corroborated this. Many Jews in Israel (and elsewhere), who are
not Orthodox and have little detailed knowledge of the Jewish
religion, have tried to shame Orthodox Israelis (or right-wingers
who are strongly influenced by religion) out of their inhuman
attitude towards the Palestinians, by quoting at them verses
from the Bible in their plain humane sense. It was always found,
however, that such arguments do not have the slightest effect on
those who follow classical Judaism; they simply do not understand
what is being said to them, because to them the biblical text means
something quite different than to everyone else.

If such a communication gap exists in Israel, where people
read Hebrew and can readily obtain correct information if they

46 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

wish, one can imagine how deep is the misconception abroad,
say among people educated in the Christian tradition. In fact, the
more such a person reads the Bible, the less he or she knows about
Orthodox Judaism. For the latter regards the Old Testament as a
text of immutable sacred formulas, whose recitation is an act of
great merit, but whose meaning is wholly determined elsewhere.
And, as Humpty Dumpty told Alice, behind the problem of
who can determine the meaning of words, there stands the real
question: ‘Which is to be master?’

Structure of the Talmud

It should therefore be clearly understood that the source of authority
for all the practices of classical (and present-day Orthodox)
Judaism, the determining base of its legal structure, is the Talmud,
or, to be precise, the so-called Babylonian Talmud; while the rest
of the talmudic literature (including the so-called Jerusalem or
Palestinian Talmud) acts as a supplementary authority.

We cannot enter here into a detailed description of the Talmud
and talmudic literature, but confine ourselves to a few principal
points needed for our argument. Basically, the Talmud consists
of two parts. First, the Mishnah - a terse legal code consisting
of six volumes, each subdivided into several tractates, written in
Flebrew, redacted in Palestine around AD 200 out of the much
more extensive (and largely oral) legal material composed during
the preceding two centuries. The second and by far predominant
part is the Gemarah - a voluminous record of discussions on
and around the Mishnah. There are two, roughly parallel, sets
of Gemarah, one composed in Mesopotamia (‘Babylon’) between
about AD 200 and 500, the other in Palestine between about
AD 200 and some unknown date long before 500. The Babylonian
Talmud (that is, the Mishnah plus the Mesopotamian Gemarah) is
much more extensive and better arranged than the Palestinian, and
it alone is regarded as definitive and authoritative. The Jerusalem
(Palestinian) Talmud is accorded a decidedly lower status as a
legal authority, along with a number of compilations, known

ORTHODOXY AND INTERPRETATION 47

collectively as the ‘talmudic literature’, containing material which
the editors of the two Talmuds had left out.

Contrary to the Mishnah, the rest of the Talmud and talmudic
literature is written in a mixture of Hebrew and Aramaic, the
latter language predominating in the Babylonian Talmud. Also,
it is not limited to legal matters. Without any apparent order or
reason, the legal discussion can suddenly be interrupted by what
is referred to as ‘Narrative’ (Aggadah) - a medley of tales and
anecdotes about rabbis or ordinary folk, biblical figures, angels,
demons, witchcraft and miracles.15 These narrative passages,
although of great popular influence in Judaism through the ages,
were always considered (even by the Talmud itself) as having
secondary value. Of greatest importance for classical Judaism
are the legal parts of the text, particularly the discussion of cases
which are regarded as problematic. The Talmud itself defines
the various categories of Jews, in ascending order, as follows.
The lowest are the totally ignorant, then come those who only
know the Bible, then those who are familiar with the Mishnah or
Aggadah, and the superior class are those who have studied, and
are able to discuss the legal part of the Gemarah. It is only the
latter who are fit to lead their fellow Jews in all things.

The legal system of the Talmud can be described as totally
comprehensive, rigidly authoritarian, and yet capable of infinite
development, without however any change in its dogmatic base.
Every aspect of Jewish life, both individual and social, is covered,
usually in considerable detail, with sanctions and punishments
provided for every conceivable sin or infringement of the rules.
The basic rules for every problem are stated dogmatically and
cannot be questioned. What can be and is discussed at very great
length is the elaboration and practical definition of these rules.
Let me give a few examples.

‘Not doing any work’ on the sabbath. The concept work is
defined as comprising exactly 39 types of work, neither more nor
less. The criterion for inclusion in this list has nothing to do with
the arduousness of a given task; it is simply a matter of dogmatic
definition. One forbidden type of ‘work’ is writing. The question
then arises: How many characters must one write in order to

48 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

commit the sin of writing on the sabbath? (Answer: Two). Is the
sin the same, irrespective of which hand is used? (Answer: No).
However, in order to guard against falling into sin, the primary
prohibition on writing is hedged with a secondary ban on touching
any writing implement on the sabbath.

Another prototypical work forbidden on the sabbath is the
grinding of grain. From this it is deduced, by analogy, that any
kind of grinding of anything whatsoever is forbidden. And this in
turn is hedged by a ban on the practice of medicine on the sabbath
(except in cases of danger to Jewish life), in order to guard against
falling into the sin of grinding a medicament. It is in vain to point
out that in modern times such a danger does not exist (nor, for
that matter, did it exist in many cases even in talmudic times); for,
as a hedge around the hedge, the Talmud explicitly forbids liquid
medicines and restorative drinks on the sabbath. What has been
fixed remains for ever fixed, however absurd. Tertullian, one of
the early Church Fathers, had written, ‘I believe it because it is
absurd.’ This can serve as a motto for the majority of talmudic
rules, with the word ‘believe’ replaced by ‘practise’.

The following example illustrates even better the level of
absurdity reached by this system. One of the prototypes of work
forbidden on the sabbath is harvesting. This is stretched, by
analogy, to a ban on breaking a branch off a tree. Hence, riding
a horse (or any other animal) is forbidden, as a hedge against the
temptation to break a branch off a tree for flogging the beast.
It is useless to argue that you have a ready-made whip, or that
you intend to ride where there are no trees. What is forbidden
remains forbidden for ever. It can, however, be stretched and made
stricter: in modern times, riding a bicycle on the sabbath has been
forbidden, because it is analogous to riding a horse.

My final example illustrates how the same methods are used
also in purely theoretical cases, having no conceivable application
in reality. During the existence of the Temple, the High Priest was
only allowed to marry a virgin. Although during virtually the
whole of the talmudic period there was no longer a Temple or a
High Priest, the Talmud devotes one of its more involved (and
bizarre) discussions to the precise definition of the term ‘virgin’ fit

ORTHODOXY AND INTERPRETATION 49

to marry a High Priest. What about a woman whose hymen had
been broken by accident? Does it make any difference whether the
accident occurred before or after the age of three? By the impact
of metal or of wood? Was she climbing a tree? And if so, was she
climbing up or down? Did it happen naturally or unnaturally?
All this and much else besides is discussed in lengthy detail. And
every scholar in classical Judaism had to master hundreds of
such problems. Great scholars were measured by their ability to
develop these problems still further, for as shown by the examples
there is always scope for further development - if only in one
direction - and such development did actually continue after the
final redaction of the Talmud.

However, there are two great differences between the talmudic
period (ending around AD 500) and the period of classical
Judaism (from about AD 800). The geographical area reflected
in the Talmud is confined, whereas the Jewish society reflected
in it is a ‘complete’ society, with Jewish agriculture as its basis.
(This is true for Mesopotamia as well as Palestine.) Although at
that time there were Jews living throughout the Roman Empire
and in many areas of the Sassanid Empire, it is quite evident from
the talmudic text that its composition - over half a millennium
- was a strictly local affair. No scholars from countries other than
Mesopotamia and Palestine took part in it, nor does the text reflect
social conditions outside these two areas.

Very little is known about the social and religious conditions
of the Jews in the intervening three centuries. But from AD 800
on, when more detailed historical information is again available,
we find that the two features mentioned above had been reversed.
The Babylonian Talmud (and to a much lesser degree the rest of
the talmudic literature) is acknowledged as authoritative, studied
and developed in all Jewish communities. At the same time, Jewish
society had undergone a deep change: whatever and wherever it
is, it does not include peasants.

The social system resulting from this change will be discussed in
Chapter 4. Here we shall describe how the Talmud was adapted
to the conditions - geographically much wider and socially much
narrower, and at any rate radically different - of classical Judaism.

50 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

We shall concentrate on what is in my opinion the most important
method of adaptation, namely the dispensations.

The Dispensations

As noted above, the talmudic system is most dogmatic and does
not allow any relaxation of its rules even when they are reduced
to absurdity by a change in circumstances. And in the case of the
Talmud - contrary to that of the Bible - the literal sense of the
text is binding, and one is not allowed to interpret it away. But
in the period of classical Judaism various talmudic laws became
untenable for the Jewish ruling classes - the rabbis and the rich.
In the interest of these ruling classes, a method of systematic
deception was devised for keeping the letter of the law, while
violating its spirit and intention. It was this hypocritical system
of ‘dispensations’ ( heterim ) which, in my view, was the most
important cause of the debasement of Judaism in its classical
epoch. (The second cause was Jewish mysticism, which however
operated for a much shorter period of time.) Again, some examples
are needed to illustrate how the system works.

1 Taking of interest. The Talmud strictly forbids a Jew, on
pain of severe punishment, to take interest on a loan made to
another Jew. (According to a majority of talmudic authorities,
it is a religious duty to take as much interest as possible on a
loan made to a Gentile.) Very detailed rules forbid even the most
far-fetched forms in which a Jewish lender might benefit from a
Jewish debtor. All Jewish accomplices to such an illicit transaction,
including the scribe and the witnesses, are branded by the Talmud
as infamous persons, disqualified from testifying in court, because
by participating in such an act a Jew as good as declares that ‘he
has no part in the god of Israel’. It is evident that this law is well
suited to the needs of Jewish peasants or artisans, or of small
Jewish communities who use their money for lending to non-
Jews. But the situation was very different in east Europe (mainly
in Poland) by the 16th century. There was a relatively big Jewish
community, which constituted the majority in many towns. The
peasants, subjected to strict serfdom not far removed from slavery,

ORTHODOXY AND INTERPRETATION 51

were hardly in a position to borrow at all, while lending to the
nobility was the business of a few very rich Jews. Many Jews were
doing business with each other.

In these circumstances, the following arrangement (called
heter‘isqa - ‘business dispensation’) was devised for an interest-
bearing loan between Jews, which does not violate the letter of the
law, because formally it is not a loan at all. The lender ‘invests’ his
money in the business of the borrower, stipulating two conditions.
First, that the borrower will pay the lender at an agreed future
date a stated sum of money (in reality, the interest in the loan)
as the lender’s ‘share in the profits’. Secondly, that the borrower
will be presumed to have made sufficient profit to give the lender
his share, unless a claim to the contrary is corroborated by the
testimony of the town’s rabbi or rabbinical judge, etc. - who, by
arrangement, refuse to testify in such cases. In practice all that is
required is to take a text of this dispensation, written in Aramaic
and entirely incomprehensible to the great majority, and put it
on a wall of the room where the transaction is made (a copy of
this text is displayed in all branches of Israeli banks) or even to
keep it in a chest - and the interest-bearing loan between Jews
becomes perfectly legal and blameless.

2 The sabbatical year. According to talmudic law (based on
Leviticus, 25) Jewish-owned land in Palestine16 must be left fallow
every seventh (‘sabbatical’) year, when all agricultural work
(including harvesting) on such land is forbidden. There is ample
evidence that this law was rigorously observed for about one
thousand years, from the 5th century BC till the disappearance of
Jewish agriculture in Palestine. Later, when there was no occasion to
apply the law in practice, it was kept theoretically intact. However,
in the 1880s, with the establishment of the first Jewish agricultural
colonies in Palestine, it became a matter of practical concern.
Rabbis sympathetic to the settlers helpfully devised a dispensation,
which was later perfected by their successors in the religious zionist
parties and has become an established Israeli practice.

This is how it works. Shortly before a sabbatical year, the Israeli
Minister of Internal Affairs gives the Chief Rabbi a document

52 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

making him the legal owner of all Israeli land, both private and
public. Armed with this paper, the Chief Rabbi goes to a non-Jew
and sells him all the land of Israel (and, since 1967, the Occupied
Territories) for a nominal sum. A separate document stipulates
that the ‘buyer’ will ‘resell’ the land back after the year is over.
And this transaction is repeated every seven years, usually with
the same ‘buyer’.

Non-zionist rabbis do not recognise the validity of this
dispensation,17 claiming correctly that, since religious law forbids
Jews to sell land in Palestine to Gentiles, the whole transaction is
based on a sin and hence null and void. The zionist rabbis reply,
however, that what is forbidden is a real sale, not a fictitious one!

3 Milking on the sabbath. This has been forbidden in post-
talmudic times, through the process of increasing religious severity
mentioned above. The ban could easily be kept in the diaspora,
since Jews who had cows of their own were usually rich enough
to have non-Jewish servants, who could be ordered (using one
of the subterfuges described below) to do the milking. The early
Jewish colonists in Palestine employed Arabs for this and other
purposes, but with the forcible imposition of the zionist policy of
exclusive Jewish labour there was need for a dispensation. (This
was particularly important before the introduction of mechanised
milking in the late 1950s.) Here too there was a difference between
zionist and non-zionist rabbis.

According to the former, the forbidden milking becomes
permitted provided the milk is not white but dyed blue. This blue
Saturday milk is then used exclusively for making cheese, and the
dye is washed off into the whey. Non-zionist rabbis have devised
a much subtler scheme (which I personally witnessed operating
in a religious kibbutz in 1952). They discovered an old provision
which allows the udders of a cow to be emptied on the sabbath,
purely for relieving the suffering caused to the animal by bloated
udders, and on the strict condition that the milk runs to waste
on the ground. Now, this is what is actually done: on Saturday
morning, a pious kibbutznik goes to the cowshed and places pails
under the cows. (There is no ban on such work in the whole of

ORTHODOXY AND INTERPRETATION 53

the talmudic literature.) He then goes to the synagogue to pray.
Then comes his colleague, whose ‘honest intention’ is to relieve the
animals’ pain and let their milk run to the floor. But if, by chance,
a pail happens to be standing there, is he under any obligation
to remove it? Of course not. He simply ‘ignores’ the pails, fulfills
his mission of mercy and goes to the synagogue. Finally a third
pious colleague goes into the cowshed and discovers, to his great
surprise, the pails full of milk. So he puts them in cold storage
and follows his comrades to the synagogue. Now all is well, and
there is no need to waste money on blue dye.

4 Mixed crops. Similar dispensations were issued by zionist
rabbis in respect of the ban (based on Leviticus, 19:19) against
sowing two different species of crop in the same field. Modern
agronomy has however shown that in some cases (especially in
growing fodder) mixed sowing is the most profitable. The rabbis
invented a dispensation according to which one man sows the field
lengthwise with one kind of seed, and later that day his comrade,
who ‘does not know’ about the former, sows another kind of seed
crosswise. However, this method was felt to be too wasteful of
labour, and a better one was devised: one man makes a heap of
one kind of seed in a public place and carefully covers it with a
sack or piece of board. The second kind of seed is then put on top
of the cover. Later, another man comes and exclaims, in front of
witnesses, ‘I need this sack (or board)’ and removes it, so that the
seeds mix ‘naturally’. Finally, a third man comes along and is told,
‘Take this and sow the field,’ which he proceeds to do.18

5 Leavened substances must not be eaten or even kept in
the possession of a Jew during the seven (or, outside Palestine,
eight) days of Passover. The concept ‘leavened substances’ was
continually broadened and the aversion to so much as seeing
them during the festival approached hysteria. They include all
kinds of flour and even unground grain. In the original talmudic
society this was bearable, because bread (leavened or not) was
usually baked once a week; a peasant family would use the last
of the previous year’s grain to bake unleavened bread for the
festival, which ushers in the new harvest season. However, in
the conditions of post-Talmudic European Jewry the observance

54 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

was very hard on a middle-class Jewish family and even more so
on a corn merchant. A dispensation was therefore devised, by
which all those substances are sold in a fictitious sale to a Gentile
before the festival and bought back automatically after it. The one
thing that must be done is to lock up the taboo substances for the
duration of the festival. In Israel this fictitious sale has been made
more efficient. Religious Jews ‘sell’ their leavened substances to
their local rabbis, who in turn ‘sell’ them to the Chief Rabbis;
the latter sell them to a Gentile, and by a special dispensation
this sale is presumed to include also the leavened substances of
non-practising Jews.

6 Sabbatb-Goy. Perhaps the most developed dispensations
concern the ‘Goy (Gentile) of Sabbath’. As mentioned above, the
range of tasks banned on the sabbath has widened continually;
but the range of tasks that must be carried out or supervised to
satisfy needs or to increase comfort also keeps widening. This is
particularly true in modern times, but the effect of technological
change began to be felt long ago. The ban against grinding on
the sabbath was a relatively light matter for a Jewish peasant or
artisan, say in 2nd-century Palestine, who used a hand mill for
domestic purposes. It was quite a different matter for a tenant
of a water mill or windmill - one of the most common Jewish
occupations in eastern Europe. But even such a simple human
‘problem’ as the wish to have a hot cup of tea on a Saturday
afternoon becomes much greater with the tempting samovar, used
regularly on weekdays, standing in the room. These are just two
examples out of a very large number of so-called ‘problems of
sabbath observance’. And one can state with certainty that for a
community composed exclusively of Orthodox Jews they were
quite insoluble, at least during the last eight or ten centuries,
without the ‘help’ of non-Jews. This is even more true today in
the ‘Jewish state’, because many public services, such as water, gas
and electricity, fall in this category. Classical Judaism could not
exist even for a whole week without using some non-Jews.

But without special dispensations there is a great obstacle in
employing non-Jews to do these Saturday jobs; for talmudic
regulations forbid Jews to ask a Gentile to do on the sabbath

ORTHODOXY AND INTERPRETATION 55

any work which they themselves are banned from doing.19 I
shall describe two of the many types of dispensation used for
such purposes.

First, there is the method of ‘hinting’, which depends on the
casuistic logic according to which a sinful demand becomes
blameless if it is phrased slyly. As a rule, the hint must be ‘obscure’,
but in cases of extreme need a ‘clear’ hint is allowed. For example,
in a recent booklet on religious observance for the use of Israeli
soldiers, the latter are taught how to talk to Arab workers employed
by the army as sabbath-Goyim. In urgent cases, such as when it
is very cold and a fire must be lit, or when light is needed for a
religious service, a pious Jewish soldier may use a ‘clear’ hint and
tell the Arab: ‘It is cold (or dark) here’. But normally an ‘obscure’
hint must suffice, for example: ‘It would be more pleasant if it were
warmer here.’20 This method of ‘hinting’ is particularly repulsive
and degrading inasmuch as it is normally used on non-Jews who,
due to their poverty or subordinate social position, are wholly in
the power of their Jewish employer. A Gentile servant (or employee
of the Israeli army) who does not train himself to interpret ‘obscure
hints’ as orders will be pitilessly dismissed.

The second method is used in cases where what the Gentile is
required to do on Saturday is not an occasional task or personal
service, which can be ‘hinted’ at as the need arises, but a routine
or regular job without constant Jewish supervision. According to
this method - called ‘implicit inclusion’ ( bavla‘ab ) of the sabbath
among weekdays - the Gentile is hired ‘for the whole week (or
year)’, without the sabbath being so much as mentioned in the
contract. But in reality work is only performed on the sabbath.
This method was used in the past in hiring a Gentile to put out the
candles in the synagogue after the sabbath-eve prayer (rather than
wastefully allowing them to burn out). Modern Israeli examples
are: regulating the water supply or watching over water reservoirs
on Saturdays.21

A similar idea is used also in the case of Jews, but for a different
end. Jews are forbidden to receive any payment for work done on
the sabbath, even if the work itself is permitted. The chief example
here concerns the sacred professions: the rabbi or talmudic scholar

56 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

who preaches or teaches on the sabbath, the cantor who sings only
on Saturdays and other holy days (on which similar bans apply),
the sexton and similar officials. In talmudic times, and in some
countries even several centuries after, such jobs were unpaid. But
later, when these became salaried professions, the dispensation of
‘implicit inclusion’ was used, and they were hired on a ‘monthly’
or ‘yearly’ basis. In the case of rabbis and talmudic scholars the
problem is particularly complicated, because the Talmud forbids
them to receive any payment for preaching, teaching or studying
talmudic matters even on weekdays.22 For them an additional
dispensation stipulates that their salary is not really a salary at all
but ‘compensation for idleness’ ( dmey batalah ). As a combined
result of these two fictions, what is in reality payment for work
done mainly, or even solely, on the sabbath is transmogrified into
payment for being idle on weekdays.

Social Aspects of Dispensations

Two social features of these and many similar practices deserve
special mention.

First, a dominant feature of this system of dispensations, and
of classical Judaism inasmuch as it is based on them, is deception
- deception primarily of God, if this word can be used for an
imaginary being so easily deceived by the rabbis, who consider
themselves cleverer than him. No greater contrast can be conceived
than that between the God of the Bible (particularly of the greater
prophets) and of the God of classical Judaism. The latter is more
like the early Roman Jupiter, who was likewise bamboozled by his
worshippers, or the gods described in Frazer’s Golden Bough.

From the ethical point of view, classical Judaism represents
a process of degeneration, which is still going on; and this
degeneration into a tribal collection of empty rituals and magic
superstitions has very important social and political consequences.
For it must be remembered that it is precisely the superstitions
of classical Judaism which have the greatest hold on the Jewish
masses, rather than those parts of the Bible or even the Talmud

ORTHODOXY AND INTERPRETATION 57

which are of real religious and ethical value. (The same can
be observed also in other religions which are now undergoing
revival.) What is popularly regarded as the most ‘holy’ and
solemn occasion of the Jewish liturgical year, attended even by
very many Jews who are otherwise far from religion? It is the
Kol Nidrey prayer on the eve of Yom Kippur - a chanting of
a particularly absurd and deceptive dispensation, by which all
private vows made to God in the following year are declared in
advance to be null and void.23 Or, in the area of personal religion,
the Qadisb prayer, said on days of mourning by sons for their
parents in order to elevate their departed souls to paradise - a
recitation of an Aramaic text, incomprehensible to the great
majority. Quite obviously, the popular regard given to these,
the most superstitious parts of the Jewish religion, is not given
to its better parts.

Together with the deception of God goes the deception of
other Jews, mainly in the interest of the Jewish ruling class. It is
characteristic that no dispensations were allowed in the specific
interest of the Jewish poor. For example, Jews who were starving
but not actually on the point of death were never allowed by
their rabbis (who did not often go hungry themselves) to eat
any sort of forbidden food, though kosher food is usually more
expensive.

The second dominant feature of the dispensations is that they
are in large part obviously motivated by the spirit of profit. And
it is this combination of hypocrisy and the profit motive which
increasingly dominated classical Judaism. In Israel, where the
process goes on, this is dimly perceived by popular opinion,
despite all the official brainwashing promoted by the education
system and the media. The religious establishment - the rabbis
and the religious parties - and, by association, to some extent
the Orthodox community as a whole, are quite unpopular in
Israel. One of the most important reasons for this is precisely their
reputation for duplicity and venality. Of course, popular opinion
(which may often be prejudiced) is not the same thing as social
analysis; but in this particular case it is actually true that the Jewish

58 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

religious establishment does have a strong tendency to chicanery
and graft, due to the corrupting influence of the Orthodox Jewish
religion. Because in general social life religion is only one of the
social influences, its effect on the mass of believers is not nearly
so great as on the rabbis and leaders of the religious parties.
Those religious Jews in Israel who are honest, as the majority of
them undoubtedly are, are so not because of the influence of their
religion and rabbis, but in spite of it. On the other hand, in those
few areas of public life in Israel which are wholly dominated by
religious circles, the level of chicanery, venality and corruption is
notorious, far surpassing the ‘average’ level tolerated by general,
non-religious Israeli society.

In Chapter 4 we shall see how the dominance of the profit motive
in classical Judaism is connected with the structure of Jewish
society and its articulation with the general society in the midst
of which Jews lived in the ‘classical’ period. Here I merely want
to observe that the profit motive is not characteristic of Judaism
in all periods of its history. Only the platonist confusion which
seeks for the metaphysical timeless ‘essence’ of Judaism, instead
of looking at the historical changes in Jewish society, has obscured
this fact. (And this confusion has been greatly encouraged by
zionism, in its reliance on ‘historical rights’ ahistorically derived
from the Bible.) Thus, apologists of Judaism claim, quite correctly,
that the Bible is hostile to the profit motive while the Talmud is
indifferent to it. But this was caused by the very different social
conditions in which they were composed. As was pointed out
above, the Talmud was composed in two well-defined areas, in
a period when the Jews living there constituted a society based
on agriculture and consisting mainly of peasants - very different
indeed from the society of classical Judaism.

In Chapter 5 we shall deal in detail with the hostile attitudes
and deceptions practised by classical Judaism against non-Jews.
But more important as a social feature is the profit-motivated
deception practised by the rich Jews against poor fellow Jews
(such as the dispensation concerning interest on loans). Here I
must say, in spite of my opposition to marxism both in philosophy

ORTHODOXY AND INTERPRETATION 59

and as a social theory, that Marx was quite right when, in his
two articles about Judaism, he characterised it as dominated
by profit-seeking - provided this is limited to Judaism as he
knew it, that is, to classical Judaism which in his youth had
already entered the period of its dissolution. True, he stated this
arbitrarily, ahistorically and without proof. Obviously he came
to his conclusion by intuition; but his intuition in this case - and
with the proper historical limitation - was right.

4

THE WEIGHT OF HISTORY

A great deal of nonsense has been written in the attempt to provide
a social or mystical interpretation of Jewry or Judaism ‘as a whole’.
This cannot be done, for the social structure of the Jewish people
and the ideological structure of Judaism have changed profoundly
through the ages. Four major phases can be distinguished:

1 The phase of the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah, until
the destruction the first Temple (587 BC) and the Babylonian
exile. (Much of the Old Testament is concerned with this period,
although most major books of the Old Testament, including the
Pentateuch as we know it, were actually composed after that date.)
Socially, these ancient Jewish kingdoms were quite similar to the
neighbouring kingdoms of Palestine and Syria; and - as a careful
reading of the Prophets reveals - the similarity extended to the
religious cults practised by the great majority of the people.1 The
ideas that were to become typical of later Judaism - including in
particular ethnic segregationism and monotheistic exclusivism -
were at this stage confined to small circles of priests and prophets,
whose social influence depended on royal support.

2 The phase of the dual centres, Palestine and Mesopotamia,
from the first ‘Return from Babylon’ (537 BC) until about AD
500. It is characterised by the existence of these two autonomous
Jewish societies, both based primarily on agriculture, on which the
‘Jewish religion’, as previously elaborated in priestly and scribal
circles, was imposed by the force and authority of the Persian
empire. The Old Testament Book of Ezra contains an account
of the activities of Ezra the priest, ‘a ready scribe in the law of
Moses’, who was empowered by King Artaxerxes I of Persia to

60

THE WEIGHT OF HISTORY 61

‘set magistrates and judges’ over the Jews of Palestine, so that
‘whosoever will not do the law of thy God, and the law of the
king, let judgement be executed speedily upon him, whether it
be unto death, or to banishment, or to confiscation of goods, or
to imprisonment.’2 And in the Book of Nehemiah - cupbearer
to King Artaxerxes who was appointed Persian governor of
Judea, with even greater powers - we see to what extent foreign
(nowadays one would say ‘imperialist’) coercion was instrumental
in imposing the Jewish religion, with lasting results.

In both centres, Jewish autonomy persisted during most
of this period and deviations from religious orthodoxy were
repressed. Exceptions to this rule occurred when the religious
aristocracy itself got ‘infected’ with Hellenistic ideas (from 300
to 166 BC and again under Herod the Great and his successors,
from 50 BC to AD 70), or when it was split in reaction to new
developments (for example, the division between the two great
parties, the Pharisees and the Sadduceans, which emerged in about
140 BC). However, the moment any one party triumphed, it used
the coercive machinery of the Jewish autonomy (or, for a short
period, independence) to impose its own religious views on all
the Jews in both centres.

During most of this time, especially after the collapse of the
Persian empire and until about AD 200, the Jews outside the
two centres were free from Jewish religious coercion. Among the
papyri preserved in Elephantine (in Upper Egypt) there is a letter
dating from 419 BC containing the text of an edict by King Darius
II of Persia which instructs the Jews of Egypt as to the details of
the observance of Passover.3 But the Hellenistic kingdoms, the
Roman Republic and early Roman Empire did not bother with
such things. The freedom that Hellenistic Jews enjoyed outside
Palestine allowed the creation of a Jewish literature written in
Greek, which was subsequently rejected in toto by Judaism and
whose remains were preserved by Christianity.4 The very rise
of Christianity was possible because of this relative freedom of
the Jewish communities outside the two centres. The experience
of the Apostle Paul is significant: in Corinth, when the local
Jewish community accused Paul of heresy, the Roman governor

62 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

Gallio dismissed the case at once, refusing to be a ‘judge of such
matters’;5 but in Judea the governor Festus felt obliged to take
legal cognizance of a purely religious internal Jewish dispute.6

This tolerance came to an end in about AD 200, when the
Jewish religion, as meanwhile elaborated and evolved in Palestine,
was imposed by the Roman authorities upon all the Jews of the
Empire.7

3 The phase which we have defined as classical Judaism and
which will be discussed below.8

4 The modern phase, characterised by the breakdown of the
totalitarian Jewish community and its power, and by attempts to
reimpose it, of which Zionism is the most important. This phase
begins in Holland in the 17th century, in France and Austria
(excluding Hungary) in the late 18th century, in most other
European countries in the middle of the 19th century, and in some
Islamic countries in the 20th century. (The Jews of Yemen were
still living in the medieval ‘classical’ phase in 1948.) Something
concerning these developments will be said later on.

Between the second phase and the third, that of classical Judaism,
there is a gap of several centuries in which our present knowledge
of Jews and Jewish society is very slight, and the scant information
we do have is all derived from external (non-Jewish) sources. In
the countries of Latin Christendom we have absolutely no Jewish
literary records until the middle of the 10th century; internal
Jewish information, mostly from religious literature, becomes
more abundant only in the 1 1th and particularly the 12th century.
Before that, we are wholly dependent first on Roman and then on
Christian evidence. In the Islamic countries the information gap
is not quite so big; still, very little is known about Jewish society
before AD 800 and about the changes it must have undergone
during the three preceding centuries.

Major Features of Classical Judaism

Let us therefore ignore those ‘dark ages’, and for the sake of
convenience begin with the two centuries 1000-1200, for which

THE WEIGHT OF HISTORY 63

abundant information is available from both internal and
external sources on all the important Jewish centres, east and
west. Classical Judaism, which is clearly discernible in this period,
has undergone very few changes since then, and (in the guise of
Orthodox Judaism) is still a powerful force today.

How can that classical Judaism be characterised, and what
are the social differences distinguishing it from earlier phases of
Judaism? I believe that there are three such major features.

1 Classical Jewish society has no peasants, and in this it differs
profoundly from earlier Jewish societies in the two centres,
Palestine and Mesopotamia. It is difficult for us, in modern
times, to understand what this means. We have to make an effort
to imagine what serfdom was like; the enormous difference in
literacy, let alone education, between village and town throughout
this period; the incomparably greater freedom enjoyed by all the
small minority who were not peasants - in order to realise that
during the whole of the classical period the Jews, in spite of all
the persecutions to which they were subjected, formed an integral
part of the privileged classes. Jewish historiography, especially in
English, is misleading on this point inasmuch as it tends to focus
on Jewish poverty and anti-Jewish discrimination. Both were real
enough at times; but the poorest Jewish craftsman, pedlar, land¬
lord’s steward or petty cleric was immeasurably better off than a
serf. This was particularly true in those European countries where
serfdom persisted into the 19th century, whether in a partial or
extreme form: Prussia, Austria (including Hungary), Poland and
the Polish lands taken by Russia. And it is not without significance
that, prior to the beginning of the great Jewish migration of
modern times (around 1880), a large majority of all Jews were
living in those areas and that their most important social function
there was to mediate the oppression of the peasants on behalf of
the nobility and the Crown.

Everywhere, classical Judaism developed hatred and contempt
for agriculture as an occupation and for peasants as a class, even
more than for other Gentiles - a hatred of which I know no
parallel in other societies. This is immediately apparent to anyone
who is familiar with the Yiddish or Hebrew literature of the 19th
and 20th centuries.9

64 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

Most east-European Jewish socialists (that is, members of
exclusively or predominantly Jewish parties and factions)
are guilty of never pointing out this fact; indeed, many were
themselves tainted with a ferocious anti-peasant attitude inherited
from classical Judaism. Of course, zionist ‘socialists’ were the
worst in this respect, but others, such as the Bund, were not much
better. A typical example is their opposition to the formation
of peasant co-operatives promoted by the Catholic clergy, on
the ground that this was ‘an act of antisemitism’. This attitude
is by no means dead even now; it could be seen very clearly in
the racist views held by many Jewish ‘dissidents’ in the USSR
regarding the Russian people, and also in the lack of discussion
of this background by so many Jewish socialists, such as Isaac
Deutscher. The whole racist propaganda on the theme of the
supposed superiority of Jewish morality and intellect (in which
many Jewish socialists were prominent) is bound up with a lack
of sensitivity for the suffering of that major part of humanity
who were especially oppressed during the last thousand years
- the peasants.

2 Classical Jewish society was particularly dependent on kings
or on nobles with royal powers. In the next chapter we discuss
various Jewish laws directed against Gentiles, and in particular
laws which command Jews to revile Gentiles and refrain from
praising them or their customs. These laws allow one and only
one exception: a Gentile king, or a locally powerful magnate
(in Hebrew paritz, in Yiddish pooretz). A king is praised and
prayed for, and he is obeyed not only in most civil matters but
also in some religious ones. As we shall see Jewish doctors, who
are in general forbidden to save the lives of ordinary Gentiles
on the Sabbath, are commanded to do their utmost in healing
magnates and rulers; this partly explains why kings and noblemen,
popes and bishops often employed Jewish physicians. But not
only physicians. Jewish tax and customs collectors, or (in eastern
Europe) bailiffs of manors could be depended upon to do their
utmost for the king or baron, in a way that a Christian could
not always be.

THE WEIGHT OF HISTORY 65

The legal status of a Jewish community in the period of classical
Judaism was normally based on a ‘privilege’ - a charter granted
by a king or prince (or, in Poland after the 16th century, by a
powerful nobleman) to the Jewish community and conferring
on it the rights of autonomy - that is, investing the rabbis with
the power to dictate to the other Jews. An important part of
such privileges, going as far back as the late Roman Empire, is
the creation of a Jewish clerical estate which, exactly like the
Christian clergy in medieval times, is exempt from paying taxes
to the sovereign and is allowed to impose taxes on the people
under its control - the Jews - for its own benefit. It is interesting
to note that this deal between the late Roman Empire and the
rabbis antedates by at least one hundred years the very similar
privileges granted by Constantine the Great and his successors
to the Christian clergy.

From about AD 200 until the early 5th century, the legal position
of Jewry in the Roman Empire was as follows. A hereditary Jewish
Patriarch (residing in Tiberias in Palestine) was recognised both
as a high dignitary in the official hierarchy of the Empire and
as supreme chief of all the Jews in the Empire.10 As a Roman
official, the Patriarch was virillustris, of the same high official
class which included the consuls, the top military commanders of
the Empire and the chief ministers around the throne (the Sacred
Consistory), and was out-ranked only by the imperial family. In
fact, the Illustrious Patriarch (as he is invariably styled in imperial
decrees) out-ranked the provincial governor of Palestine. Emperor
Theodosius I, the Great, a pious and orthodox Christian, executed
his governor of Palestine for insulting the Patriarch.

At the same time, all the rabbis - who had to be designated
by the Patriarch - were freed from the most oppressive Roman
taxes and received many official privileges, such as exemption
from serving on town councils (which was also one of the first
privileges later granted to the Christian clergy). In addition, the
Patriarch was empowered to tax the Jews and to discipline them
by imposing fines, flogging and other punishments. He used this
power in order to suppress Jewish heresies and (as we know from

66 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

the Talmud) to persecute Jewish preachers who accused him of
taxing the Jewish poor for his personal benefit.

We know from Jewish sources that the tax-exempt rabbis used
excommunication and other means within their power to enhance
the religious hegemony of the Patriarch. We also hear, mostly
indirectly, of the hate and scorn that many of the Jewish peasants
and urban poor in Palestine had for the rabbis, as well as of the
contempt of the rabbis for the Jewish poor (usually expressed as
contempt for the ‘ignorant’). Nevertheless, this typical colonial
arrangement continued, as it was backed by the might of the
Roman Empire.

Similar arrangements existed, within each country, during the
whole period of classical Judaism. Their social effects on the
Jewish communities differed, however, according to the size of
each community. Where there were few Jews, there was normally
little social differentiation within the community, which tended
to be composed of rich and middle-class Jews, most of whom
had considerable rabbinical-talmudic education. But in countries
where the number of Jews increased and a big class of Jewish
poor appeared, the same cleavage as the one described above
manifested itself, and we observe the rabbinical class, in alliance
with the Jewish rich, oppressing the Jewish poor in its own interest
as well as in the interest of the state - that is, of the Crown and
the nobility.

This was, in particular, the situation in pre-1795 Poland. The
specific circumstances of Polish Jewry will be outlined below.
Here I only want to point out that because of the formation of a
large Jewish community in that country, a deep cleavage between
the Jewish upper class (the rabbis and the rich) and the Jewish
masses developed there from the 18th century and continued
throughout the 19th century. So long as the Jewish community
had power over its members, the incipient revolts of the poor,
who had to bear the main brunt of taxation, were suppressed
by the combined force of the naked coercion of Jewish ‘self-rule’
and religious sanction.

Because of all this, throughout the classical period (as well as in
modern times) the rabbis were the most loyal, not to say zealous,

THE WEIGHT OF HISTORY 67

supporters of the powers that be; and the more reactionary the
regime, the more rabbinical support it had.

3 The society of classical Judaism is in total opposition to the
surrounding non-Jewish society, except the king (or the nobles,
when they take over the state). This is amply illustrated in
Chapter 5.

The consequences of these three social features, taken together,
go a long way towards explaining the history of classical Jewish
communities both in Christian and in Muslim countries.

The position of the Jews is particularly favourable under strong
regimes which have retained a feudal character, and in which
national consciousness, even at a rudimentary level, has not yet
begun to develop. It is even more favourable in countries such
as pre-1795 Poland or in the Iberian kingdoms before the latter
half of the 15th century, where the formation of a nationally
based powerful feudal monarchy was temporarily or permanently
arrested. In fact, classical Judaism flourishes best under strong
regimes which are dissociated from most classes in society, and
in such regimes the Jews fulfil one of the functions of a middle
class - but in a permanently dependent form. For this reason they
are opposed not only by the peasantry (whose opposition is then
unimportant, except for the occasional and rare popular revolt)
but more importantly by the non-Jewish middle class (which was
on the rise in Europe), and by the plebeian part of the clergy; and
they are protected by the upper clergy and the nobility. But in
those countries where, feudal anarchy having been curbed, the
nobility enters into partnership with the king (and with at least
part of the bourgeoisie) to rule the state, which assumes a national
or protonational form, the position of the Jews deteriorates.

This general scheme, valid for Muslim and Christian countries
alike, will now be illustrated briefly by a few examples.

England, France and Italy

Since the first period of Jewish residence in England was so brief,
and coincided with the development of the English national feudal

68 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

monarchy, this country can serve as the best illustration of the
above scheme. Jews were brought over to England by William the
Conqueror, as part of the French-speaking Norman ruling class,
with the primary duty of granting loans to those lords, spiritual
and temporal, who were otherwise unable to pay their feudal dues
(which were particularly heavy in England and more rigorously
exacted in that period than in any other European monarchy).
Their greatest royal patron was Elenry II, and the Magna Carta
marked the beginning of their decline, which continued during the
conflict of the barons with Henry III. The temporary resolution
of this conflict by Edward I, with the formation of Parliament
and of ‘ordinary’ and fixed taxation, was accompanied by the
expulsion of the Jews.

Similarly, in France the Jews flourished during the formation
of the strong feudal principalities in the 11th and 12th centuries,
including the Royal Domain; and their best protector among the
Capetian kings was Louis VII (1137-80), notwithstanding his
deep and sincere Christian piety. At that time the Jews of France
counted themselves as knights (in Hebrew, parashim) and the
leading Jewish authority in France, Rabbenu Tam, warns them
never to accept an invitation by a feudal lord to settle on his
domain, unless they are accorded privileges similar to those of
other knights. The decline in their position begins with Philip II
Augustus, originator of the political and military alliance of the
Crown with the rising urban commune movement, and plummets
under Philip IV the Handsome, who convoked the first Estates
General for the whole of France in order to gain support against
the pope. The final expulsion of Jews from the whole of France
is closely bound up with the firm establishment of the Crown’s
rights of taxation and the national character of the monarchy.

Similar examples can be given from other European countries
where Jews were living during that period. Reserving Christian
Spain and Poland for a more detailed discussion, we remark that
in Italy, where many city states had a republican form of power,
the same regularity is discernible. Jews flourished especially in the
Papal States, in the twin feudal kingdoms of Sicily and Naples
(until their expulsion, on Spanish orders, circa 1500) and in the

THE WEIGHT OF HISTORY

69

feudal enclaves of Piedmont. But in the great commercial and
independent cities such as Florence their number was small and
their social role unimportant.

The Muslim World

The same general scheme applies to Jewish communities during
the classical period in Muslim countries as well, except for the
important fact that expulsion of Jews, being contrary to Islamic law,
was virtually unknown there. (Medieval Catholic canon law, on
the other hand, neither commands nor forbids such expulsion.)

Jewish communities flourished in the famous, but socially mis¬
interpreted, Jewish Golden Age in Muslim countries under regimes
which were particularly dissociated from the great majority of
the people they ruled, and whose power rested on nothing but
naked force and a mercenary army. The best example is Muslim
Spain, where the very real Jewish Golden Age (of Hebrew poetry,
grammar, philosophy etc) begins precisely with the fall of the
Spanish Umayyad caliphate after the death of the de facto ruler,
al-Mansur, in 1002, and the establishment of the numerous ta’ifa
(faction) kingdoms, all based on naked force. The rise of the
famous Jewish commander-in-chief and prime minister of the
kingdom of Granada, Samuel the Chief (Shmu’el Hannagid, died
1056), who was also one of the greatest Hebrew poets of all
ages, was based primarily on the fact that the kingdom which
he served was a tyranny of a rather small Berber military force
over the Arabic-speaking inhabitants. A similar situation obtained
in the other ta’ifa Arab-Spanish kingdoms. The position of the
Jews declined somewhat with the establishment of the Almoravid
regime (in 1086-90) and became quite precarious under the
strong and popular Almohad regime (after 1147) when, as a
result of persecutions, the Jews migrated to the Christian Spanish
kingdoms, where the power of the kings was still very slight.

Similar observations can be made regarding the states of the
Muslim East. The first state in which the Jewish community
reached a position of important political influence was the Fatimid
empire, especially after the conquest of Egypt in 969, because it

70 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

was based on the rule of an Isma‘ili-shi‘ite religious minority. The
same phenomenon can be observed in the Seljuk states - based
on feudal-type armies, mercenaries and, increasingly, on slave
troops ( mam Inks ) - and in their successor states. The favour of
Saladin to the Jewish communities, first in Egypt, then in other
parts of this expanding empire, was based not only on his real
personal qualities of tolerance, charity and deep political wisdom,
but equally on his rise to power as a rebellious commander of
mercenaries freshly arrived in Egypt and then as usurper of the
power of the dynasty which he and his father and uncle before
him had served.

But perhaps the best Islamic example is the state where the Jews’
position was better than anywhere else in the East since the fall
of the ancient Persian empire - the Ottoman empire, particularly
during its heyday in the 16th century.11 As is well known, the
Ottoman regime was based initially on the almost complete
exclusion of the Turks themselves (not to mention other Muslims
by birth) from positions of political power and from the most
important part of the army, the Janissary corps, both of which
were manned by the sultan’s Christian-born slaves, abducted in
childhood and educated in special schools. Until the end of the
16th century no free-born Turk could become a Janissary or hold
any important government office. In such a regime, the role of the
Jews in their sphere was quite analogous to that of the Janissaries
in theirs. Thus the position of the Jews was best under a regime
which was politically most dissociated from the peoples it ruled.
With the admission of the Turks themselves (as well as some other
Muslim peoples, such as the Albanians) to the ruling class of the
Ottoman empire, the position of the Jews declines. However, this
decline was not very sharp, because of the continuing arbitrariness
and non-national character of the Ottoman regime.

This point is very important, in my opinion, because the relatively
good situation of Jews under Islam in general, and under certain
Islamic regimes in particular, is used by many Palestinian and other
Arab propagandists in a very ignorant, albeit perhaps well-meaning,
way. First, they generalise and reduce serious questions of politics
and history to mere slogans. Granted that the position of Jews was,

THE WEIGHT OF HISTORY 71

on average, much better under Islam than under Christianity - the
important question to ask is, under what regimes was it better or
worse? We have seen where such an analysis leads.

But, secondly and more importantly: in a pre-modern state,
a ‘better’ position of the Jewish community normally entailed
a greater degree of tyranny exercised within this community by
the rabbis against other Jews. To give one example: certainly, the
figure of Saladin is one which, considering his period, inspires
profound respect. But together with this respect, I for one cannot
forget that the enhanced privileges he granted to the Jewish
community in Egypt and his appointment of Maimonides as their
Chief (Nagid) immediately unleashed severe religious persecution
of Jewish ‘sinners’ by the rabbis. For instance, Jewish ‘priests’
(supposed descendants of the ancient priests who had served in
the Temple) are forbidden to marry not only prostitutes12 but
also divorcees. This latter prohibition, which has always caused
difficulties, was infringed during the anarchy under the last
Fatimid rulers (circa 1130-80) by such ‘priests’ who, contrary to
Jewish religious law, were married to Jewish divorcees in Islamic
courts (which are nominally empowered to marry non-Muslims).
The greater tolerance towards ‘the Jews’ instituted by Saladin
upon his accession to power enabled Maimonides to issue orders
to the rabbinical courts in Egypt to seize all Jews who had gone
through such forbidden marriages and have them flogged until
they ‘agreed’ to divorce their wives.13 Similarly, in the Ottoman
empire the powers of the rabbinical courts were very great and
consequently most pernicious. Therefore the position of Jews in
Muslim countries in the past should never be used as a political
argument in contemporary (or future) contexts.

Christian Spain

I have left to the last a discussion of the two countries where the
position of the Jewish community and the internal development
of classical Judaism were most important - Christian Spain14
(or rather the Iberian peninsula, including Portugal) and pre-
1795 Poland.

72 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

Politically, the position of Jews in the Christian Spanish
kingdoms was the highest ever attained by Jews in any country
(except some of the ta’ifas and under the Fatimids) before the 19th
century. Many Jews served officially as Treasurers General to the
kings of Castile, regional and general tax collectors, diplomats
(representing their king in foreign courts, both Muslim and
Christian, even outside Spain), courtiers and advisers to rulers
and great noblemen. And in no other country except Poland did
the Jewish community wield such great legal powers over the
Jews or used them so widely and publicly, including the power to
inflict capital punishment. From the 1 1th century the persecution
of Karaites (a heretical Jewish sect) by flogging them to death
if unrepentant was common in Castile. Jewish women who
cohabited with Gentiles had their noses cut off by rabbis who
explained that ‘in this way she will lose her beauty and her non-
Jewish lover will come to hate her’. Jews who had the effrontery
to attack a rabbinical judge had their hands cut off. Adulterers
were imprisoned, after being made to run the gauntlet through the
Jewish quarter. In religious disputes, those thought to be heretics
had their tongues cut out.

Historically, all this was associated with feudal anarchy and
with the attempt of a few ‘strong’ kings to rule through sheer
force, disregarding the parliamentary institutions, the Cortes,
which had already come into existence. In this struggle, not only
the political and financial power of the Jews but also their military
power (at least in the most important kingdom, Castile) was very
significant. One example will suffice: both feudal misgovernment
and Jewish political influence in Castile reached their peak under
Pedro I, justly nick-named the Cruel. The Jewish communities
of Toledo, Burgos and many other cities served practically as his
garrisons in the long civil war between him and his half-brother,
Henry of Trastamara, who after his victory became Henry II
(1369-79). 15 The same Pedro I gave the Jews of Castile the right
to establish a country-wide inquisition against Jewish religious
deviants - more than one hundred years before the establishment
of the more famous Catholic Holy Inquisition.

THE WEIGHT OF HISTORY 73

As in other western European countries, the gradual emergence
of national consciousness around the monarchy, which began
under the house of Trastamara and after ups and downs reached
a culmination under the Catholic Kings Ferdinand and Isabella,
was accompanied first by a decline in the position of the Jews,
then by popular movements and pressures against them and finally
by their expulsion. On the whole the Jews were defended by the
nobility and upper clergy. It was the more plebeian sections of
the church, particularly the mendicant orders, involved in the
life of the lower classes, which were hostile to them. The great
enemies of the Jews, Torquemada and Cardinal Ximenes, were
also great reformers of the Spanish church, making it much less
corrupt and much more dependent on the monarchy instead of
being the preserve of the feudal aristocracy.

Poland

The old pre-1795 Poland - a feudal republic with an elective king
- is a converse example; it illustrates how before the advent of the
modern state the position of the Jews was socially most important,
and their internal autonomy greatest, under a regime which was
completely retarded to the point of utter degeneracy.

Due to many causes, medieval Poland lagged in its development
behind countries like England and France; a strong feudal-type
monarchy - yet without any parliamentary institutions - was
formed there only in the 14th century, especially under Casimir
the Great (1333-70). Immediately after his death, changes of
dynasty and other factors led to a very rapid development of the
power of the noble magnates, then also of the petty nobility, so
that by 1572 the process of reduction of the king to a figure head
and exclusion of all other non-noble estates from political power
was virtually complete. In the following two hundred years, the
lack of government turned into an acknowledged anarchy, to the
point where a court decision in a case affecting a nobleman was
only a legal licence to wage a private war to enforce the verdict
(for there was no other way to enforce it) and where feuds between
great noble houses in the 18th century involved private armies

74 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

numbering tens of thousands, much larger than the derisory forces
of the official army of the Republic.

This process was accompanied by a debasement in the position
of the Polish peasants (who had been free in the early Middle
Ages) to the point of utter serfdom, hardly distinguishable from
outright slavery and certainly the worst in Europe. The desire of
noblemen in neighbouring countries to enjoy the power of the
Polish pan over his peasants (including the power of life and death
without any right of appeal) was instrumental in the territorial
expansion of Poland. The situation in the ‘eastern’ lands of Poland
(Byelorussia and the Ukraine) - colonised and settled by newly
enserfed peasants - was worst of all.16

A small number of Jews (albeit in important positions) had
apparently been living in Poland since the creation of the Polish
state. A significant Jewish immigration into that country began in
the 13th century and increased under Casimir the Great, with the
decline in the Jewish position in western and then in central Europe.
Not very much is known about Polish Jewry in that period. But
with the decline of the monarchy in the 16th century - particularly
under Sigismund I the Old (1506-48) and his son Sigismund II
Augustus (1548-72) - Polish Jewry burst into social and political
prominence accompanied, as usual, with a much greater degree
of autonomy. It was at this time that Poland’s Jews were granted
their greatest privileges, culminating in the establishment of the
famous Committee of Four Lands, a very effective autonomous
Jewish organ of rule and jurisdiction over all the Jews in Poland’s
four divisions. One of its many important functions was to collect
all the taxes from Jews all over the country, deducting part of the
yield for its own use and for the use of local Jewish communities,
and passing the rest on to the state treasury.

What was the social role of Polish Jewry from the beginning of
the 16th century until 1795 ? With the decline of royal power, the
king’s usual role in relation to the Jews was rapidly taken over
by the nobility - with lasting and tragic results both for the Jews
themselves and for the common people of the Polish republic. All
over Poland the nobles used Jews as their agents to undermine
the commercial power of the Royal Towns, which were weak in

THE WEIGHT OF HISTORY 75

any case. Alone among the countries of western Christendom, in
Poland a nobleman’s property inside a Royal Town was exempt
from the town’s laws and guild regulations. In most cases the
nobles settled their Jewish clients in such properties, thus giving
rise to a lasting conflict. The Jews were usually ‘victorious’, in the
sense that the towns could neither subjugate nor drive them off;
but in the frequent popular riots Jewish lives (and, even more,
Jewish property) were lost. The nobles still got the profits. Similar
or worse consequences followed from the frequent use of Jews as
commercial agents of noblemen: they won exemption from most
Polish tolls and tariffs, to the loss of the native bourgeoisie.

But the most lasting and tragic results occurred in the eastern
provinces of Poland - roughly, the area east of the present border,
including almost the whole of the present Ukraine and reaching
up to the Great-Russian language frontier. (Until 1667 the Polish
border was far east of the Dnieper, so that Poltava, for example,
was inside Poland.) In those wide territories there were hardly any
Royal Towns. The towns were established by nobles and belonged
to them - and they were settled almost exclusively by Jews. Until
1939, the population of many Polish towns east of the river Bug
was at least 90 per cent Jewish, and this demographic phenomenon
was even more pronounced in that area of Tsarist Russia annexed
from Poland and known as the Jewish Pale. Outside the towns
very many Jews throughout Poland, but especially in the east,
were employed as the direct supervisors and oppressors of the
enserfed peasantry - as bailiffs of whole manors (invested with the
landlord’s full coercive powers) or as lessees of particular feudal
monopolies such as the corn mill, the liquor still and public house
(with the right of armed search of peasant houses for illicit stills)
or the bakery, and as collectors of customary feudal dues of all
kinds. In short, in eastern Poland, under the rule of the nobles (and
of the feudalised church, formed exclusively from the nobility)
the Jews were both the immediate exploiters of the peasantry and
virtually the only town-dwellers.

No doubt, most of the profit they extracted from the peasants
was passed on to the landlords, in one way or another. No doubt,
the oppression and subjugation of the Jews by the nobles were

76 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

severe, and the historical record tells many a harrowing tale of
the hardship and humiliation inflicted by noblemen on ‘their’
Jews. But, as we have remarked, the peasants suffered worse
oppression at the hands of both landlords and Jews; and one
may assume that, except in times of peasant uprisings, the full
weight of the Jewish religious laws against Gentiles fell upon
the peasants. As will be seen in the next chapter, these laws are
suspended or mitigated in cases where it is feared that they might
arouse dangerous hostility towards Jews; but the hostility of the
peasants could be disregarded as ineffectual so long as the Jewish
bailiff could shelter under the ‘peace’ of a great lord.

The situation stagnated until the advent of the modern state,
by which time Poland had been dismembered. Therefore Poland
was the only big country in western Christendom from which the
Jews were never expelled. A new middle class could not arise out
of the utterly enslaved peasantry; and the old bourgeoisie was
geographically limited and commercially weak, and therefore
powerless. Overall, matters got steadily worse, but without any
substantial change.

Internal conditions within the Jewish community moved in
a similar course. In the period 1500-1795, one of the most
superstition-ridden in the history of Judaism, Polish Jewry was
the most superstitious and fanatic of all Jewish communities. The
considerable power of the Jewish autonomy was used increasingly
to stifle all original or innovative thought, to promote the most
shameless exploitation of the Jewish poor by the Jewish rich
in alliance with the rabbis, and to justify the Jews’ role in the
oppression of the peasants in the service of the nobles. Here,
too, there was no way out except by liberation from the outside.
Pre-1795 Poland, where the social role of the Jews was more
important than in any other classical diaspora, illustrates better
than any other country the bankruptcy of classical Judaism.

Anti-Jewish Persecutions

During the whole period of classical Judaism, Jews were often
subjected to persecutions17 - and this fact now serves as the

THE WEIGHT OF HISTORY 77

main ‘argument’ of the apologists of the Jewish religion with its
anti-Gentile laws and especially of zionism. Of course, the Nazi
extermination of five to six million European Jews is supposed
to be the crowning argument in that line. We must therefore
consider this phenomenon and its contemporary aspect. This is
particularly important in view of the fact that the descendants of
the Jews of pre-1795 Poland (often called ‘east-European Jews’
- as opposed to Jews from the German cultural domain of the
early 19th century, including the present Austria, Bohemia and
Moravia) now wield predominant political power in Israel as
well as in the Jewish communities in the USA and other English-
speaking countries; and, because of their particular past history,
this mode of thinking is especially entrenched among them, much
more than among other Jews.

We must, first, draw a sharp distinction between the persecutions
of Jews during the classical period on the one hand, and the Nazi
extermination on the other. The former were popular movements,
coming from below; whereas the latter was inspired, organised
and carried out from above: indeed, by state officials. Such acts
as the Nazi state-organised extermination are relatively rare in
human history, although other cases do exist (the extermination of
the Tasmanians and several other colonial peoples, for example).
Moreover, the Nazis intended to wipe out other peoples besides the
Jews: Gypsies were exterminated like Jews, and the extermination
of Slavs was well under way, with the systematic massacre of
millions of civilians and prisoners of war. However, it is the
recurrent persecution of Jews in so many countries during the
classical period which is the model (and the excuse) for the zionist
politicians in their persecution of the Palestinians, as well as the
argument used by apologists of Judaism in general; and it is this
phenomenon which we consider now.

It must be pointed out that in all the worst anti-Jewish
persecutions, that is, where Jews were killed, the ruling elite - the
emperor and the pope, the kings, the higher aristocracy and the
upper clergy, as well as the rich bourgeoisie in the autonomous
cities - were always on the side of the Jews. The latter’s enemies
belonged to the more oppressed and exploited classes and those

78 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

close to them in daily life and interests, such as the friars of the
mendicant orders.18 It is true that in most (but I think not in
all) cases members of the elite defended the Jews neither out of
considerations of humanity nor because of sympathy to the Jews
as such, but for the type of reason used generally by rulers in
justification of their interests - the fact that the Jews were useful
and profitable (to them), defence of ‘law and order’, hatred of
the lower classes and fear that anti-Jewish riots might develop
into general popular rebellion. Still, the fact remains that they did
defend the Jews. For this reason all the massacres of Jews during
the classical period were part of a peasant rebellion or other
popular movements at times when the government was for some
reason especially weak. This is true even in the partly exceptional
case of Tsarist Russia. The Tsarist government, acting surrepti¬
tiously through its secret police, did promote pogroms; but it did
so only when it was particularly weak (after the assassination of
Alexander II in 1881, and in the period immediately before and
after the 1905 revolution) and even then took care to contain
the breakdown of ‘law and order’. During the time of its greatest
strength - for example, under Nicholas I or in the latter part of
the reign of Alexander III, when the opposition had been smashed
- pogroms were not tolerated by the Tsarist regime, although legal
discrimination against Jews was intensified.

The general rule can be observed in all the major massacres of
Jews in Christian Europe. During the first crusade, it was not the
proper armies of the knights, commanded by famous dukes and
counts, which molested the Jews, but the spontaneous popular
hosts composed almost exclusively of peasants and paupers in the
wake of Peter the Hermit. In each city the bishop or the emperor’s
representative opposed them and tried, often in vain, to protect
the Jews.19 The anti-Jewish riots in England which accompanied
the third crusade were part of a popular movement directed also
against royal officials, and some rioters were punished by Richard
I. The massacres of Jews during the outbreaks of the Black Death
occurred against the strict orders of the pope, the emperor, the
bishops and the German princes. In the free towns, for example
in Strasbourg, they were usually preceded by a local revolution

THE WEIGHT OF HISTORY 79

in which the oligarchic town council, which protected the Jews,
was overthrown and replaced by a more popular one. The great
1391 massacres of Jews in Spain took place under a feeble regency
government and at a time when the papacy, weakened by the
Great Schism between competing popes, was unable to control
the mendicant friars.

Perhaps the most outstanding example is the great massacre
of Jews during the Chmielnicki revolt in the Ukraine (1648),
which started as a mutiny of Cossack officers but soon turned
into a widespread popular movement of the oppressed serfs:
‘The unprivileged, the subjects, the Ukrainians, the Orthodox
[persecuted by the Polish Catholic church] were rising against their
Catholic Polish masters, particularly against their masters’ bailiffs,
clergy and Jews.’20 This typical peasant uprising against extreme
oppression, an uprising accompanied not only by massacres
committed by the rebels but also by even more horrible atrocities
and ‘counter-terror’ of the Polish magnates’ private armies,21 has
remained emblazoned in the consciousness of east-European Jews
to this very day - not, however, as a peasant uprising, a revolt
of the oppressed, of the real wretched of the earth, nor even as
a vengeance visited upon all the servants of the Polish nobility,
but as an act of gratuitous antisemitism directed against Jews as
such. In fact, the voting of the Ukrainian delegation at the UN
and, more generally, Soviet policies on the Middle East, are often
‘explained’ in the Israeli press as ‘a heritage of Chmielnicki’ or
of his ‘descendants’.

Modern Antisemitism

The character of anti-Jewish persecutions underwent a radical
change in modern times. With the advent of the modern state, the
abolition of serfdom and the achievement of minimal individual
rights, the special socio-economic function of the Jews necessarily
disappears. Along with it disappear also the powers of the Jewish
community over its members; individual Jews in growing numbers
win the freedom to enter the general society of their countries.
Naturally, this transition aroused a violent reaction both on the

80 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

part of Jews (especially their rabbis) and of those elements in
European society who opposed the open society and for whom
the whole process of liberation of the individual was anathema.

Modern antisemitism appears first in France and Germany, then
in Russia, after about 1870. Contrary to the prevalent opinion
among Jewish socialists, I do not believe that its beginnings or
its subsequent development until the present day can be ascribed
to ‘capitalism’. On the contrary, in my opinion the successful
capitalists in all countries were on the whole remarkably free
from antisemitism, and the countries in which capitalism was
established first and in its most extensive form - such as England
and Belgium - were also those where antisemitism was far less
widespread than elsewhere.22

Early modern antisemitism (1880-1900) was a reaction of
bewildered men, who deeply hated modern society in all its
aspects, both good and bad, and who were ardent believers in
the conspiracy theory of history. The Jews were cast in the role
of scapegoat for the breakup of the old society (which antisemitic
nostalgia imagined as even more closed and ordered than it had
ever been in reality) and for all that was disturbing in modern
times. But right at the start the antisemites were faced with what
was, for them, a difficult problem: how to define this scapegoat,
particularly in popular terms? What is to be the supposed common
denominator of the Jewish musician, banker, craftsman and
beggar - especially after the common religious features had largely
dissolved, at least externally? The ‘theory’ of the Jewish race was
the modern antisemitic answer to this problem.

In contrast, the old Christian, and even more so Muslim
opposition to classical Judaism was remarkably free from racism.
No doubt this was to some extent a consequence of the universal
character of Christianity and Islam, as well as of their original
connection with Judaism (St Thomas More repeatedly rebuked a
woman who objected when he told her that the Virgin Mary was
Jewish). But in my opinion a far more important reason was the
social role of the Jews as an integral part of the upper classes. In
many countries Jews were treated as potential nobles and, upon
conversion, were able immediately to intermarry with the highest

THE WEIGHT OF HISTORY 81

nobility. The nobility of 15th century Castile and Aragon or the
aristocracy of 18th century Poland - to take the two cases where
intermarriage with converted Jews was widespread - would hardly
be likely to marry Spanish peasants or Polish serfs, no matter how
much praise the Gospel has for the poor.

It is the modern myth of the Jewish ‘race’ - of outwardly
hidden but supposedly dominant characteristics of ‘the Jews’,
independent of history, of social role, of anything - which is
the formal and most important distinguishing mark of modern
antisemitism. This was in fact perceived by some Church leaders
when modern antisemitism first appeared as a movement of some
strength. Some French Catholic leaders, for example, opposed the
new racist doctrine expounded by E. Drumont, the first popular
modern French antisemite and author of the notorious book La
France Juive (1886), which achieved wide circulation.23 Early
modern German antisemites encountered similar opposition.

It must be pointed out that some important groups of European
conservatives were quite prepared to play along with modern
antisemitism and use it for their own ends, and the antisemites
were equally ready to use the conservatives when the occasion
offered itself, although at bottom there was little similarity
between the two parties. ‘The victims who were most harshly
treated [by the pen of the above-mentioned Drumont] were not the
Rothschilds but the great nobles who courted them. Drumont did
not spare the Royal Family ... or the bishops, or for that matter the
Pope.’24 Nevertheless, many of the French great nobles, bishops
and conservatives generally were quite happy to use Drumont and
antisemitism during the crisis of the Dreyfus affair in an attempt
to bring down the republican regime.

This type of opportunistic alliance reappeared many times
in various European countries until the defeat of Nazism. The
conservatives’ hatred of radicalism and especially of all forms of
socialism blinded many of them to the nature of their political
bedfellows. In many cases they were literally prepared to ally
themselves with the devil, forgetting the old saying that one needs
a very long spoon to sup with him.

82 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

The effectiveness of modern antisemitism, and of its alliance
with conservatism, depended on several factors.

First, the older tradition of Christian religious opposition to
Jews, which existed in many (though by no means all) European
countries, could, if supported or at least unopposed by the clergy,
be harnessed to the antisemitic bandwagon. The actual response
of the clergy in each country was largely determined by specific
local historical and social circumstances. In the Catholic Church,
the tendency for an opportunistic alliance with antisemitism was
strong in France but not in Italy; in Poland and Slovakia but
not in Bohemia. The Greek Orthodox Church had notorious
antisemitic tendencies in Romania but took the opposite line
in Bulgaria. Among the Protestant Churches, the German was
deeply divided on this issue, others (such as the Latvian and
Estonian) tended to be antisemitic, but many (for example the
Dutch, Swiss and Scandinavian) were among the earliest to
condemn antisemitism.

Secondly, antisemitism was largely a generic expression of
xenophobia, a desire for a ‘pure’ homogeneous society. But in
many European countries around 1900 (and in fact until quite
recently) the Jew was virtually the only ‘stranger’. This was
particularly true of Germany. In principle, the German racists of
the early 20th century hated and despised Blacks just as much as
Jews; but there were no Blacks in Germany then. Hate is of course
much more easily focused on the present than on the absent,
especially under the conditions of the time, when mass travel and
tourism did not exist and most Europeans never left their own
country in peacetime.

Thirdly, the successes of the tentative alliance between
conservatism and antisemitism were inversely proportional to
the power and capabilities of its opponents. And the consistent
and effective opponents of antisemitism in Europe are the political
forces of liberalism and socialism - historically the same forces
that continue in various ways the tradition symbolised by the
War of Dutch Independence (1568-1648), the English Revolution
and the Great French Revolution. On the European continent
the main shibboleth is the attitude towards the Great French

THE WEIGHT OF HISTORY 83

Revolution - roughly speaking, those who are for it are against
antisemitism; those who accept it with regret would be at least
prone to an alliance with the antisemites; those who hate it and
would like to undo its achievements are the milieu from which
antisemitism develops.

Nevertheless, a sharp distinction must be made between
conservatives and even reactionaries on the one hand and actual
racists and antisemites on the other. Modern racism (of which
antisemitism is part) although caused by specific social conditions,
becomes, when it gains strength, a force that in my opinion
can only be described as demonic. After coming to power, and
for its duration, I believe it defies analysis by any presently
understood social theory or set of merely social observations
- and in particular by any known theory invoking interests, be
they class or state interests, or other than purely psychological
‘interests’ of any entity that can be defined in the present state
of human knowledge. By this I do not mean that such forces
are unknowable in principle; on the contrary, one must hope
that with the growth of human knowledge they will come to
be understood. But at present they are neither understood nor
capable of being rationally predicted - and this applies to all
racism in all societies.25 As a matter of fact, no political figure
or group of any political colour in any country had predicted
even vaguely the horrors of Nazism. Only artists and poets such
as Heine were able to glimpse some of what the future had in
store. We do not know how they did it; and besides, many of
their other hunches were wrong.

The Zionist Response

Historically, zionism is both a reaction to antisemitism and a
conservative alliance with it - although the Zionists, like other
European conservatives, did not fully realise with whom they
were allying themselves.

Until the rise of modern antisemitism, the mood of European
Jewry was optimistic, indeed excessively so. This was manifested
not only in the very large number of Jews, particularly in western

84 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

countries, who simply opted out of classical Judaism, apparently
without any great regret, in the first or second generation after
this became possible, but also in the formation of a strong cultural
movement, the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah), which began
in Germany and Austria around 1780, was then carried into
eastern Europe and by 1850-70 was making itself felt as a
considerable social force. I cannot enter here into a discussion
of the movement’s cultural achievements, such as the revival
of Hebrew literature and the creation of a wonderful literature
in Yiddish. However, it is important to note that despite many
internal differences, the movement as a whole was characterised
by two common beliefs: a belief in the need for a fundamental
critique of Jewish society and particularly of the social role of
the Jewish religion in its classical form, and the almost messianic
hope for the victory of the ‘forces of good’ in European societies.
The latter forces were naturally defined by the sole criterion of
their support for Jewish emancipation.

The growth of antisemitism as a popular movement, and the
many alliances of the conservative forces with it, dealt a severe
blow to the Jewish Enlightenment. The blow was especially
devastating because in actual fact the rise of antisemitism
occurred just after the Jews were emancipated in some European
countries, and even before they were freed in others. The Jews
of the Austrian empire received fully equal rights only in 1867.
In Germany, some independent states emancipated their Jews
quite early, but others did not; notably, Prussia was grudging
and tardy in this matter, and final emancipation of the Jews in
the German empire as a whole was only granted by Bismarck in
1871. In the Ottoman empire the Jews were subject to official
discrimination until 1909, and in Russia (as well as Romania)
until 1917. Thus modern antisemitism began within a decade of
the emancipation of the Jews in central Europe and long before
the emancipation of the biggest Jewish community at that time,
that of the Tsarist empire.

It is therefore easy for the Zionists to ignore half of the relevant
facts, revert to the segregationist stance of classical Judaism, and
claim that since all Gentiles always hate and persecute all Jews,

THE WEIGHT OF HISTORY 85

the only solution would be to remove all the Jews bodily and
concentrate them in Palestine or Uganda or wherever.26 Some
early Jewish critics of Zionism were quick to point out that if one
assumes a permanent and ahistorical incompatibility between
Jews and Gentiles - an assumption shared by both Zionists and
antisemites! - then to concentrate the Jews in one place would
simply bring upon them the hatred of the Gentiles in that part
of the world (as indeed was to happen, though for very different
reasons). But as far as I know this logical argument did not make
any impression, just as all the logical and factual arguments against
the myth of the ‘Jewish race’ made not the slightest difference to
the antisemites.

In fact, close relations have always existed between Zionists
and antisemites: exactly like some of the European conservatives,
the Zionists thought they could ignore the ‘demonic’ character of
antisemitism and use the antisemites for their own purposes. Many
examples of such alliances are well known. Herzl allied himself
with the notorious Count von Plehve, the antisemitic minister
of Tsar Nicholas II;27 Jabotinsky made a pact with Petlyura,
the reactionary Ukrainian leader whose forces massacred some
100,000 Jews in 1918-21; Ben-Gurion’s allies among the French
extreme right during the Algerian war included some notorious
antisemites who were, however, careful to explain that they were
only against the Jews in France, not in Israel.

Perhaps the most shocking example of this type is the delight
with which some zionist leaders in Germany welcomed Flitler’s
rise to power, because they shared his belief in the primacy of
‘race’ and his hostility to the assimilation of Jews among ‘Aryans’.
They congratulated Hitler on his triumph over the common enemy
- the forces of liberalism. Dr Joachim Prinz, a zionist rabbi who
subsequently emigrated to the USA, where he rose to be vice-
chairman of the World Jewish Congress and a leading light in the
World Zionist Organization (as well as a great friend of Golda
Meir), published in 1934 a special book, Wir Juden (We, Jews),
to celebrate Hitler’s so-called German Revolution and the defeat
of liberalism:

86 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

The meaning of the German Revolution for the German nation will
eventually be clear to those who have created it and formed its image.
Its meaning for us must be set forth here: the fortunes of liberalism are
lost. The only form of political life which has helped Jewish assimilation
is sunk.28

The victory of Nazism rules out assimilation and mixed marriages
as an option for Jews. ‘We are not unhappy about this,’ said Dr
Prinz. In the fact that Jews are being forced to identify themselves
as Jews, he sees ‘the fulfilment of our desires’. And further:

We want assimilation to be replaced by a new law: the declaration of
belonging to the Jewish nationandjewishrace. A state built upon the principle
of the purity of nation and race can only be honoured and respected by a
Jew who declares his belonging to his own kind. Having so declared himself,
he will never be capable of faulty loyalty towards a state. The state cannot
want other Jews but such as declare themselves as belonging to their nation.
It will not want Jewish flatterers and crawlers. It must demand of us faith
and loyalty to our own interest. For only he who honours his own breed
and his own blood can have an attitude of honour towards the national
will of other nations.29

The whole book is full of similar crude flatteries of Nazi ideology,
glee at the defeat of liberalism and particularly of the ideas of the
French Revolution30 and great expectations that, in the congenial
atmosphere of the myth of the Aryan race, zionism and the myth
of the Jewish race will also thrive.

Of course, Dr Prinz, like many other early sympathisers and
allies of Nazism, did not realise where that movement (and
modern antisemitism generally) was leading. Equally, many people
at present do not realise where zionism - the movement in which
Dr Prinz was an honoured figure - is tending: to a combination
of all the old hates of classical Judaism towards Gentiles and to
the indiscriminate and ahistorical use of all the persecutions of
Jews throughout history in order to justify the zionist persecution
of the Palestinians.

For, insane as it sounds, it is nevertheless plain upon close
examination of the real motives of the Zionists, that one of the

THE WEIGHT OF HISTORY 87

most deep-seated ideological sources of the zionist establish¬
ment’s persistent hostility towards the Palestinians is the fact
that they are identified in the minds of many east-European Jews
with the rebellious east-European peasants who participated in
the Chmielnicki uprising and in similar revolts - and the latter
are in turn identified ahistorically with modern antisemitism
and Nazism.

Confronting the Past

All Jews who really want to extricate themselves from the tyranny
of the totalitarian Jewish past must face the question of their
attitude towards the popular anti-Jewish manifestations of the
past, particularly those connected with the rebellions of enserfed
peasants. On the other side, all the apologists of the Jewish religion
and of Jewish segregationism and chauvinism also take their stand
- both ultimately and in current debates - on the same question.
The undoubted fact that the peasant revolutionaries committed
shocking atrocities against Jews (as well as against their other
oppressors) is used as an ‘argument’ by those apologists, in exactly
the same way that the Palestinian terror is used to justify the denial
of justice to the Palestinians.

Our own answer must be a universal one, applicable in principle
to all comparable cases. And, for a Jew who truly seeks liberation
from Jewish particularism and racism and from the dead hand of
the Jewish religion, such an answer is not very difficult.

After all, revolts of oppressed peasants against their masters and
their masters’ bailiffs are common in human history. A generation
after the Chmielnicki uprising of the Ukrainian peasants, the
Russian peasants rose under the leadership of Stenka Ryazin,
and again, one hundred years later, in the Pugachev rebellion.
In Germany there was the Peasant War of 1525, in France the
Jacquerie of 1357-8 and many other popular revolts, not to
mention the many slave uprisings in all parts of the world. All
of them - and I have intentionally chosen to mention examples
in which Jews were not targets - were attended by horrifying
massacres, just as the Great French Revolution was accompanied

88 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

by appalling acts of terror. What is the position of true progressives

- and, by now, of most ordinary decent educated people, be they
Russian, German or French - on these rebellions? Do decent
English historians, even when noting the massacres of Englishmen
by rebellious Irish peasants rising against their enslavement,
condemn the latter as ‘anti-English racists’? What is the attitude
of progressive French historians towards the great slave revolution
in Santo Domingo, where many French women and children were
butchered? To ask the question is to answer it. But to ask a similar
question of many ‘progressive’ or even ‘socialist’ Jewish circles
is to receive a very different answer; here an enslaved peasant is
transformed into a racist monster, if Jews profited from his state
of slavery and exploitation.

The maxim that those who do not learn from history are
condemned to repeat it applies to those Jews who refuse to come
to terms with the Jewish past: they have become its slaves and
are repeating it in zionist and Israeli policies. The State of Israel
now fulfils towards the oppressed peasants of many countries

- not only in the Middle East but also far beyond it - a role not
unlike that of the Jews in pre-1795 Poland: that of a bailiff to
the imperial oppressor. It is characteristic and instructive that
Israel’s major role in arming the forces of the Somoza regime
in Nicaragua, and those of Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile and
the rest has not given rise to any wide public debate in Israel or
among organised Jewish communities in the diaspora. Even the
narrower question of expediency - whether the selling of weapons
to a dictatorial butcher of freedom fighters and peasants is in the
long term interest of Jews - is seldom asked. Even more significant
is the large part taken in this business by religious Jews, and the
total silence of their rabbis (who are very vocal in inciting hatred
against Arabs). It seems that Israel and zionism are a throw-back
to the role of classical Judaism - writ large, on a global scale, and
under more dangerous circumstances.

The only possible answer to all this, first of all by Jews, must
be that given by all true advocates of freedom and humanity
in all countries, all peoples and all great philosophies - limited
though they sometimes are, as the human condition itself is

THE WEIGHT OF HISTORY 89

limited. We must confront the Jewish past and those aspects
of the present which are based simultaneously on lying about
that past and worshipping it. The prerequisites for this are, first,
total honesty about the facts and, secondly, the belief (leading to
action, whenever possible) in universalist human principles of
ethics and politics.

The ancient Chinese sage Mencius (4th century BC), much
admired by Voltaire, once wrote:

This is why I say that all men have a sense of commiseration: here is a man
who suddenly notices a child about to fall into a well. Invariably he will
feel a sense of alarm and compassion. And this is not for the purpose of
gaining the favour of the child's parents or of seeking the approbation of his
neighbours and friends, or for fear of blame should he fail to rescue it. Thus
we see that no man is without a sense of compassion or a sense of shame or
a sense of courtesy or a sense of right and wrong. The sense of compassion
is the beginning of humanity, the sense of shame is the beginning of
righteousness, and sense of courtesy is the beginning of decorum, the sense
of right and wrong is the beginning of wisdom. Everyman has within himself
these four beginnings, just as he has four limbs. Since everyone has these
four beginnings within him, the man who considers himself incapable of
exercising them is destroying himself.

We have seen above, and will show in greater detail in the next
chapter, how far removed from this are the precepts with which
the Jewish religion in its classical and talmudic form is poisoning
minds and hearts.

The road to a genuine revolution in Judaism - to making it
humane, allowing Jews to understand their own past, thereby
re-educating themselves out of its tyranny - lies through an
unrelenting critique of the Jewish religion. Without fear or favour,
we must speak out against what belongs to our own past as
Voltaire did against his:

Ecrasez I’infame!

5

THE LAWS AGAINST NON-JEWS

As explained in Chapter 3, the Halakhah, that is the legal system
of classical Judaism - as practised by virtually all Jews from the
9th century to the end of the 18th and as maintained to this
very day in the form of Orthodox Judaism - is based primarily
on the Babylonian Talmud. However, because of the unwieldy
complexity of the legal disputations recorded in the Talmud, more
manageable codifications of talmudic law became necessary and
were indeed compiled by successive generations of rabbinical
scholars. Some of these have acquired great authority and are in
general use. For this reason we shall refer for the most part to
such compilations (and their most reputable commentaries) rather
than directly to the Talmud. It is however correct to assume that
the compilation referred to reproduces faithfully the meaning of
the talmudic text and the additions made by later scholars on the
basis of that meaning.

The earliest code of talmudic law which is still of major
importance is the Mishneh Torah written by Moses Maimonides
in the late 12th century. The most authoritative code, widely
used to date as a handbook, is the Shulhan ‘Arukh composed by
R. Yosef Karo in the late 16th century as a popular condensation
of his own much more voluminous Beyt Yosef which was intended
for the advanced scholar. The Shulhan ‘Arukh is much commented
upon; in addition to classical commentaries dating from the 17th
century, there is an important 20th century one, Mishnah Berurah.
Finally, the Talmudic Encyclopedia - a modern compilation
published in Israel from the 1950s and edited by the country’s
greatest Orthodox rabbinical scholars - is a good compendium
of the whole talmudic literature.

90

THE LAWS AGAINST NON-JEWS 91

Murder and Genocide

According to the Jewish religion, the murder of a Jew is a capital
offence and one of the three most heinous sins (the other two
being idolatry and adultery). Jewish religious courts and secular
authorities are commanded to punish, even beyond the limits of
the ordinary administration of justice, anyone guilty of murdering
a Jew. A Jew who indirectly causes the death of another Jew is,
however, only guilty of what talmudic law calls a sin against the
‘laws of Heaven’, to be punished by God rather than by man.

When the victim is a Gentile, the position is quite different.
A Jew who murders a Gentile is guilty only of a sin against the
laws of Heaven, not punishable by a court.1 To cause indirectly
the death of a Gentile is no sin at all.2

Thus, one of the two most important commentators on the
Sbulban ‘Arukb explains that when it comes to a Gentile, ‘one
must not lift one’s hand to harm him, but one may harm him
indirectly, for instance by removing a ladder after he had fallen
into a crevice ... there is no prohibition here, because it was
not done directly.’3 He points out, however, that an act leading
indirectly to a Gentile’s death is forbidden if it may cause the
spread of hostility towards Jews.4

A Gentile murderer who happens to be under Jewish jurisdiction
must be executed whether the victim was Jewish or not. However,
if the victim was Gentile and the murderer converts to Judaism,
he is not punished.5

All this has a direct and practical relevance to the realities of
the State of Israel. Although the state’s criminal laws make no
distinction between Jew and Gentile, such distinction is certainly
made by Orthodox rabbis, who in guiding their flock follow
the Halakhah. Of special importance is the advice they give to
religious soldiers.

Since even the minimal interdiction against murdering a Gentile
outright applies only to ‘Gentiles with whom we [the Jews] are
not at war’, various rabbinical commentators in the past drew
the logical conclusion that in wartime all Gentiles belonging to a
hostile population may, or even should be killed.6 Since 1973 this

92 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

doctrine is being publicly propagated for the guidance of religious
Israeli soldiers. The first such official exhortation was included
in a booklet published by the Central Region Command of the
Israeli Army, whose area includes the West Bank. In this booklet
the Command’s Chief Chaplain writes:

When our forces come across civilians during a war or in hot pursuit or in
a raid, so long as there is no certainty that those civilians are incapable of
harming our forces, then according to the Halakhah they may and even
should be killed ... Under no circumstances should an Arab be trusted, even
if he makes an impression of being civilised ... In war, when ourforces storm
the enemy, they are allowed and even enjoined by the Halakhah to kill even
good civilians, that is, civilians who are ostensibly good.7

The same doctrine is expounded in the following exchange of
letters between a young Israeli soldier and his rabbi, published
in the yearbook of one of the country’s most prestigious
religious colleges, Midrashiyyat No‘am, where many leaders
and activists of the National Religious Party and Gush Emunim
have been educated.8

Letter from the soldier Moshe to Rabbi Shim'on Weiser

‘With God’s help, to His Honour, my dear Rabbi,

‘First I would like to ask how you and your family are. I hope
all is well. I am, thank God, feeling well. A long time I have not
written. Please forgive me. Sometimes I recall the verse “when
shall I come and appear before God?”9 1 hope, without being
certain, that I shall come during one of the leaves. I must do so.

‘In one of the discussions in our group, there was a debate about
the “purity of weapons” and we discussed whether it is permitted
to kill unarmed men - or women and children? Or perhaps we
should take revenge on the Arabs? And then everyone answered
according to his own understanding. I could not arrive at a clear
decision, whether Arabs should be treated like the Amalekites,
meaning that one is permitted to murder [s/c] them until their

THE LAWS AGAINST NON-JEWS 93

remembrance is blotted out from under heaven,10 or perhaps one
should do as in a just war, in which one kills only the soldiers?

‘A second problem I have is whether I am permitted to put
myself in danger by allowing a woman to stay alive? For there
have been cases when women threw hand grenades. Or am I
permitted to give water to an Arab who put his hand up? For
there may be reason to fear that he only means to deceive me and
will kill me, and such things have happened.

‘I conclude with a warm greeting to the rabbi and all his family.
- Moshe.’

Reply of R. Shim'on Weiser to Moshe

‘With the help of Heaven. Dear Moshe, Greetings.

‘I am starting this letter this evening although I know I cannot
finish it this evening, both because I am busy and because I would
like to make it a long letter, to answer your questions in full, for
which purpose I shall have to copy out some of the sayings of our
sages, of blessed memory, and interpret them.11

‘The non-Jewish nations have a custom according to which war
has its own rules, like those of a game, like the rules of football or
basketball. But according to the sayings of our sages, of blessed
memory, [ ... J war for us is not a game but a vital necessity, and
only by this standard must we decide how to wage it. On the one
hand [ ... J we seem to learn that if a Jew murders a Gentile, he is
regarded as a murderer and, except for the fact that no court has
the right to punish him, the gravity of the deed is like that of any
other murder. But we find in the very same authorities in another
place [ ... ] that Rabbi ShinTon used to say: “The best of Gentiles
- kill him; the best of snakes - dash out its brains.”

‘It might perhaps be argued that the expression “kill” in the
saying of R. Shim’on is only figurative and should not be taken
literally but as meaning “oppress” or some similar attitude, and
in this way we also avoid a contradiction with the authorities
quoted earlier. Or one might argue that this saying, though meant
literally, is [merely] his own personal opinion, disputed by other
sages [quoted earlier]. But we find the true explanation in the

94 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

Tosafot.12 There [ ... J we learn the following comment on the
talmudic pronouncement that Gentiles who fall into a well should
not be helped out, but neither should they be pushed into the well
to be killed, which means that they should neither be saved from
death nor killed directly. And the Tosafot write as follows: “And
if it is queried [because] in another place it was said The best of
Gentiles - kill him, then the answer is that this [saying] is meant
for wartime.” [ ... ]

‘According to the commentators of the Tosafot, a distinction
must be made between wartime and peace, so that although
during peace time it is forbidden to kill Gentiles, in a case that
occurs in wartime it is a mitzvah [imperative, religious duty] to
kill them. [ ... ]

‘And this is the difference between a Jew and a Gentile: although
the rule “Whoever comes to kill you, kill him first” applies to a
Jew, as was said in Tractate Sanhedrin [of the Talmud], page 72a,
still it only applies to him if there is [actual] ground to fear that he
is coming to kill you. But a Gentile during wartime is usually to
be presumed so, except when it is quite clear that he has no evil
intent. This is the rule of “purity of weapons” according to the
Halakhah - and not the alien conception which is now accepted
in the Israeli army and which has been the cause of many [Jewish]
casualties. I enclose a newspaper cutting with the speech made
last week in the Knesset by Rabbi Kalman Kahana, which shows
in a very lifelike - and also painful - way how this “purity of
weapons” has caused deaths.

‘I conclude here, hoping that you will not find the length of this
letter irksome. This subject was being discussed even without your
letter, but your letter caused me to write up the whole matter.

‘Be in peace, you and all Jews, and [I hope to] see you soon, as
you say. Yours - Shim' on.'

Reply of Moshe to R. Shim'on Weiser

‘To His Honour, my dear Rabbi,

‘First I hope that you and your family are in health and are
all right.

THE LAWS AGAINST NON-JEWS 95

‘I have received your long letter and am grateful for your
personal watch over me, for I assume that you write to many,
and most of your time is taken up with your studies in your own
programme.

‘Therefore my thanks to you are doubly deep.

‘As for the letter itself, I have understood it as follows:

‘In wartime I am not merely permitted, but enjoined to kill
every Arab man and woman whom I chance upon, if there is
reason to fear that they help in the war against us, directly or
indirectly. And as far as I am concerned I have to kill them even if
that might result in an involvement with the military law. I think
that this matter of the purity of weapons should be transmitted
to educational institutions, at least the religious ones, so that
they should have a position about this subject and so that they
will not wander in the broad fields of “logic”, especially on this
subject; and the rule has to be explained as it should be followed
in practice. For, I am sorry to say, I have seen different types of
“logic” here even among the religious comrades. I do hope that
you shall be active in this, so that our boys will know the line of
their ancestors clearly and unambiguously.

‘I conclude here, hoping that when the [training] course ends, in
about a month, I shall be able to come to the yeshivah [talmudic
college]. Greetings - Moshe .’

Of course, this doctrine of the Halakhah on murder clashes, in
principle, not only with Israel’s criminal law but also - as hinted in
the letters just quoted - with official military standing regulations.
However, there can be little doubt that in practice this doctrine
does exert an influence on the administration of justice, especially
by military authorities. The fact is that in all cases where Jews
have, in a military or paramilitary context, murdered Arab non-
combatants - including cases of mass murder such as that in Kafr
Qasim in 1956 - the murderers, if not let off altogether, received
extremely light sentences or won far-reaching remissions, reducing
their punishment to next to nothing. 13

96 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

Saving of Life

This subject - the supreme value of human life and the obligation
of every human being to do the utmost to save the life of a fellow
human - is of obvious importance in itself. It is also of particular
interest in a Jewish context, in view of the fact that since the second
world war Jewish opinion has - in some cases justly, in others
unjustly - condemned ‘the whole world’ or at least all Europe for
standing by when Jews were being massacred. Let us therefore
examine what the Halakhah has to say on this subject.

According to the Halakhah, the duty to save the life of a fellow
Jew is paramount.14 It supersedes all other religious obligations
and interdictions, excepting only the prohibitions against the
three most heinous sins of adultery (including incest), murder
and idolatry.

As for Gentiles, the basic talmudic principle is that their lives
must not be saved, although it is also forbidden to murder them
outright. The Talmud itself15 expresses this in the maxim ‘Gentiles
are neither to be lifted [out of a well] nor hauled down [into it]’.
Maimonides16 explains:

As for Gentiles with whom we are not at war ... their death must not be
caused, but it is forbidden to save them if they are at the point of death;
if, for example, one of them is seen falling into the sea, he should not be
rescued, for it is written: 'neither shalt thou stand against the blood of thy
fellow’17 - but [a Gentile] is not thy fellow.

In particular, a Jewish doctor must not treat a Gentile patient.
Maimonides - himself an illustrious physician - is quite explicit
on this; in another passage18 he repeats the distinction between
‘thy fellow’ and a Gentile, and concludes: ‘and from this learn ye,
that it is forbidden to heal a Gentile even for payment ... ’
However, the refusal of a Jew - particularly a Jewish doctor - to
save the life of a Gentile may, if it becomes known, antagonise
powerful Gentiles and so put jews in danger. Where such danger
exists, the obligation to avert it supersedes the ban on helping the
Gentile. Thus Maimonides continues: ‘ ... but if you fear him or his
hostility, cure him for payment, though you are forbidden to do

THE LAWS AGAINST NON-JEWS 97

so without payment.’ In fact, Maimonides himself was Saladin’s
personal physician. His insistence on demanding payment -
presumably in order to make sure that the act is not one of human
charity but an unavoidable duty - is however not absolute. For
in another passage he allows a Gentile whose hostility is feared
to be treated ‘even gratis, if it is unavoidable’.

The whole doctrine - the ban on saving a Gentile’s life or
healing him, and the suspension of this ban in cases where there
is fear of hostility - is repeated (virtually verbatim) by other
major authorities, including the 14th century Arba‘ah Turim
and Karo’s Beyt Yosef and Shulhan ‘ Arukh ,19 Beyt Yosef adds,
quoting Maimonides: ‘And it is permissible to try out a drug on
a heathen, if this serves a purpose’; and this is repeated also by
the famous R. Moses Isserles.

The consensus of halakhic authorities is that the term ‘Gentiles’
in the above doctrine refers to all non-Jews. A lone voice of dissent
is that of R. Moses Rivkes, author of a minor commentary on the
Shulhan ‘Arnkh, who writes.20

Our sages only said this about heathens, who in their day worshipped idols
and did not believe in the Jewish Exodus from Egypt or in the creation of
the world ex nihilo. But the Gentiles in whose [protective] shade we, the
people of Israel, are exiled and among whom we are scattered do believe
in the creation of the world ex nihilo and in the Exodus and in several
principles of our own religion and they pray to the Creator of heaven and
earth ... Not only is there no interdiction against helping them, but we are
even obliged to pray for their safety.

This passage, dating from the second half of the 17th century, is
a favourite quote of apologetic scholars.21 Actually, it does not go
nearly as far as the apologetics pretend, for it advocates removing
the ban on saving a Gentile’s life, rather than making it mandatory
as in the case of a Jew; and even this liberality extends only to
Christians and Muslims but not the majority of human beings.
Rather, what it does show is that there was a way in which the
harsh doctrine of the Halakhah could have been progressively
liberalised. But as a matter of fact the majority of later halakhic

98 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

authorities, far from extending Rivkes’ leniency to other human
groups, have rejected it altogether.

Desecrating the Sabbath to Save Life

Desecrating the sabbath - that is, doing work that would otherwise
be banned on Saturday - becomes a duty when the need to save
a Jew’s life demands it.

The problem of saving a Gentile’s life on the sabbath is not raised
in the Talmud as a main issue, since it is in any case forbidden
even on a weekday; it does however enter as a complicating factor
in two connections.

First, there is a problem where a group of people are in danger,
and it is possible (but not certain) that there is at least one Jew
among them; should the sabbath be desecrated in order to save
them? There is an extensive discussion of such cases. Following
earlier authorities, including Maimonides and the Talmud itself,
the Shulhan ‘ Arukh 22 decides these matters according to the
weight of probabilities. For example, suppose nine Gentiles and
one Jew live in the same building. One Saturday the building
collapses; one of the ten - it is not known which one - is away,
but the other nine are trapped under the rubble. Should the rubble
be cleared, thus desecrating the sabbath, seeing that the Jew may
not be under it (he may have been the one that got away)? The
Shulhan ‘Arukh says that it should, presumably because the odds
that the Jew is under the rubble are high (nine to one). But now
suppose that nine have got away and only one - again, it is not
known which one - is trapped. Then there is no duty to clear the
rubble, presumably because this time there are long odds (nine
to one) against the Jew being the person trapped. Similarly: ‘If a
boat containing some Jews is seen to be in peril upon the sea, it
is a duty incumbent upon all to desecrate the sabbath in order to
save it.’ However, the great R. ‘Aqiva Eiger (died 1837) comments
that this applies only ‘when it is known that there are Jews on
board. But ... if nothing at all is known about the identity of
those on board, [the sabbath] must not be desecrated, for one
acts according to [the weight of probabilities, and] the majority

THE LAWS AGAINST NON-JEWS 99

of people in the world are Gentiles.’23 Thus, since there are very
long odds against any of the passengers being Jewish, they must
be allowed to drown.

Secondly, the provision that a Gentile may be saved or cared for
in order to avert the danger of hostility is curtailed on the sabbath.
A Jew called upon to help a Gentile on a weekday may have to
comply because to admit that he is not allowed, in principle,
to save the life of a non-Jew would be to invite hostility. But
on Saturday the Jew can use sabbath observance as a plausible
excuse. A paradigmatic case discussed at length in the Talmud24
is that of a Jewish midwife invited to help a Gentile woman in
childbirth. The upshot is that the midwife is allowed to help on
a weekday ‘for fear of hostility’, but on the sabbath she must
not do so, because she can excuse herself by saying: ‘We are
allowed to desecrate the sabbath only for our own, who observe
the sabbath, but for your people, who do not keep the sabbath,
we are not allowed to desecrate it.’ Is this explanation a genuine
one or merely an excuse? Maimonides clearly thinks that it is just
an excuse, which can be used even if the task that the midwife
is invited to do does not actually involve any desecration of the
sabbath. Presumably, the excuse will work just as well even in
this case, because Gentiles are generally in the dark as to precisely
which kinds of work are banned for Jews on the sabbath. At
any rate, he decrees: ‘A Gentile woman must not be helped in
childbirth on the sabbath, even for payment; nor must one fear
hostility, even when [such help involves] no desecration of the
sabbath.’ The Shulhan ‘Arukh decrees likewise.25

Nevertheless, this sort of excuse could not always be relied
upon to do the trick and avert Gentile hostility. Therefore certain
important rabbinical authorities had to relax the rules to some
extent and allowed Jewish doctors to treat Gentiles on the sabbath
even if this involved doing certain types of work normally banned
on that day. This partial relaxation applied particularly to rich
and powerful Gentile patients, who could not be fobbed off so
easily and whose hostility could be dangerous.

Thus, R. Yo’el Sirkis, author of Bayit Hadasb and one of the
greatest rabbis of his time (Poland, 17th century), decided that

100 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

‘mayors, petty nobles and aristocrats’ should be treated on the
sabbath, because of the fear of their hostility which involves ‘some
danger’. But in other cases, especially when the Gentile can be
fobbed off with an evasive excuse, a Jewish doctor would commit
‘an unbearable sin’ by treating him on the sabbath. Later in the
same century, a similar verdict was given in the French city of
Metz, whose two parts were connected by a pontoon bridge. Jews
are not normally allowed to cross such a bridge on the sabbath, but
the rabbi of Metz decided that a Jewish doctor may nevertheless
do so ‘if he is called to the great governor’: since the doctor is
known to cross the bridge for the sake of his Jewish patients, the
governor’s hostility could be aroused if the doctor refused to do
so for his sake. Under the authoritarian rule of Louis XIV, it was
evidently important to have the goodwill of his intendant; the
feelings of lesser Gentiles were of little importance.26

Hokhmat Shlomob, a 19th century commentary on the Shulhan
‘Arukh, mentions a similarly strict interpretation of the concept
‘hostility’ in connection with the Karaites, a small heretical
Jewish sect. According to this view, their lives must not be saved
if that would involve desecration of the sabbath, ‘for “hostility”
applies only to the heathen, who are many against us, and we are
delivered into their hands ... But the Karaites are few and we are
not delivered into their hands, [so] the fear of hostility does not
apply to them at all.’27 In fact, the absolute ban on desecrating
the sabbath in order to save the life of a Karaite is still in force
today, as we shall see.

The whole subject is extensively discussed in the responsa of
R. Moshe Sofer - better known as ‘Hatam Sofer’ - the famous
rabbi of Pressburg (Bratislava) who died in 1832. His conclusions
are of more than historical interest, since in 1966 one of his
responsa was publicly endorsed by the then Chief Rabbi of Israel
as ‘a basic institution of the Halakhah’.28 The particular question
asked of Hatam Sofer concerned the situation in Turkey, where it
was decreed during one of the wars that in each township or village
there should be midwives on call, ready to hire themselves out to
any woman in labour. Some of these midwives were Jewish; should

THE LAWS AGAINST NON-JEWS 101

they hire themselves out to help Gentile women on weekdays and
on the sabbath?

In his responsum,19 Hatam Sofer first concludes, after careful
investigation, that the Gentiles concerned - that is, Ottoman
Christians and Muslims - are not only idolators ‘who definitely
worship other gods and thus should “neither be lifted [out of a
well] nor hauled down”,’ but are likened by him to the Amalekites,
so that the talmudic ruling ‘it is forbidden to multiply the seed of
Amalek’ applies to them. In principle, therefore, they should not
be helped even on weekdays. However, in practice it is ‘permitted’
to heal Gentiles and help them in labour, if they have doctors and
midwives of their own, who could be called instead of the Jewish
ones. For if Jewish doctors and midwives refused to attend to
Gentiles, the only result would be loss of income to the former
- which is of course undesirable. This applies equally on weekdays
and on the sabbath, provided no desecration of the sabbath is
involved. However, in the latter case the sabbath can serve as
an excuse to ‘mislead the heathen woman and say that it would
involve desecration of the sabbath’.

In connection with cases that do actually involve desecration
of the sabbath, Hatam Sofer - like other authorities - makes a
distinction between two categories of work banned on the sabbath.
First, there is work banned by the Torah, the biblical text (as
interpreted by the Talmud); such work may only be performed in
very exceptional cases, if failing to do so would cause an extreme
danger of hostility towards Jews. Then there are types of work
which are only banned by the sages who extended the original
law of the Torah; the attitude towards breaking such bans is
generally more lenient.

Another responsum of Hatam Sofer30 deals with the question
whether it is permissible for a Jewish doctor to travel by carriage
on the sabbath in order to heal a Gentile. After pointing out that
under certain conditions travelling by horse-drawn carriage on the
sabbath only violates a ban imposed ‘by the sages’ rather than by
the Torah, he goes on to recall Maimonides’ pronouncement that
Gentile women in labour must not be helped on the sabbath, even
if no desecration of the sabbath is involved, and states that the

102 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

same principle applies to all medical practice, not just midwifery.
But he then voices the fear that if this were put into practice, ‘it
would arouse undesirable hostility,’ for ‘the Gentiles would not
accept the excuse of sabbath observance,’ and ‘would say that the
blood of an idolator has little worth in our eyes’. Also, perhaps
more importantly, Gentile doctors might take revenge on their
Jewish patients. Better excuses must be found. He advises a Jewish
doctor who is called to treat a Gentile patient out of town on the
sabbath to excuse himself by saying that he is required to stay in
town in order to look after his other patients, ‘for he can use this
in order to say, “I cannot move because of the danger to this or
that patient, who needs a doctor first, and I may not desert my
charge” ... With such an excuse there is no fear of danger, for it
is a reasonable pretext, commonly given by doctors who are late
in arriving because another patient needed them first.’ Only ‘if it
is impossible to give any excuse’ is the doctor permitted to travel
by carriage on the sabbath in order to treat a Gentile.

In the whole discussion, the main issue is the excuses that
should be made, not the actual healing or the welfare of the
patient. And throughout it is taken for granted that it is all right
to deceive Gentiles rather than treat them, so long as ‘hostility’
can be averted.31

Of course, in modern times most Jewish doctors are not religious
and do not even know of these rules. Moreover, it appears that
even many who are religious prefer - to their credit - to abide by
the Hippocratic oath rather than by the precepts of their fanatic
rabbis.32 However, the rabbis’ guidance cannot fail to have some
influence on some doctors; and there are certainly many who,
while not actually following that guidance, choose not to protest
against it publicly.

All this is far from being a dead issue. The most up-to-date
halakhic position on these matters is contained in a recent
concise and authoritative book published in English under the
title Jewish Medical Law.33 This book, which bears the imprint of
the prestigeous Israeli foundation Mossad Harav Kook, is based
on the responsa of R. Eli‘ezer Yehuda Waldenberg, Chief Justice

THE LAWS AGAINST NON-JEWS 103

of the Rabbinical District Court of Jerusalem. A few passages of
this work deserve special mention.

First, ‘it is forbidden to desecrate the sabbath ... for a Karaite.’34
This is stated bluntly, absolutely and without any further
qualification. Presumably the hostility of this small sect makes
no difference, so they should be allowed to die rather than be
treated on the sabbath.

As for Gentiles: ‘According to the ruling stated in the Talmud
and Codes of Jewish Law, it is forbidden to desecrate the Sabbath
- whether violating Biblical or rabbinic law - in order to save
the life of a dangerously ill gentile patient. It is also forbidden to
deliver the baby of a gentile women on the Sabbath.’35

But this is qualified by a dispensation: ‘However, today it is
permitted to desecrate the Sabbath on behalf of a Gentile by
performing actions prohibited by rabbinic law, for by so doing one
prevents ill feelings from arising between Jew and Gentile.’36

This does not go very far, because medical treatment very often
involves acts banned on the sabbath by the Torah itself, which are
not covered by this dispensation. There are, we are told, ‘some’
halakhic authorities who extend the dispensation to such acts as
well - but this is just another way of saying that most halakhic
authorities, and the ones that really count, take the opposite
view. However, all is not lost. Jewish Medical Law has a truly
breathtaking solution to this difficulty.

The solution hangs upon a nice point of talmudic law. A ban
imposed by the Torah on performing a given act on the sabbath is
presumed to apply only when the primary intention in performing
it is the actual outcome of the act. (For example, grinding wheat
is presumed to be banned by the Torah only if the purpose is
actually to obtain flour.) On the other hand, if the performance of
the same act is merely incidental to some other purpose (melakhah
seh’eynah tzrikhah legufah ) then the act changes its status - it is
still forbidden, to be sure, but only by the sages rather than by
the Torah itself. Therefore:

In order to avoid any transgression of the law, there is a legally acceptable

method of rendering treatment on behalf of a gentile patient even when

104 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

dealing with violation of Biblical Law. It is suggested that at the time that the
physician is providing the necessary care, his intentions should not primarily
be to cure the patient, but to protect himself and the Jewish people from
accusations of religious discrimination and severe retaliation that may
endanger him in particular and the Jewish people in general. With this
intention, any act on the physician's part becomes 'an act whose actual
outcome is not its primary purpose’ ... which is forbidden on Sabbath only
by rabbinic law.37

This hypocritical substitute for the Hippocratic oath is also
proposed by a recent authoritative Hebrew book.38

Although the facts were mentioned at least twice in the Israeli
press,39 the Israeli Medical Association has remained silent.

Having treated in some detail the supremely important subject
of the attitude of the Halakhah to a Gentile’s very life, we shall deal
much more briefly with other halakhic rules which discriminate
against Gentiles. Since the number of such rules is very large, we
shall mention only the more important ones.

Sexual Offences

Sexual intercourse between a married Jewish woman and any
man other than her husband is a capital offence for both parties,
and one of the three most heinous sins. The status of Gentile
women is very different. The Halakhah presumes all Gentiles to
be utterly promiscuous and the verse ‘whose flesh is as the flesh
of asses, and whose issue [of semen] is like the issue of horses’40
is applied to them. Whether a Gentile woman is married or not
makes no difference, since as far as Jews are concerned the very
concept of matrimony does not apply to Gentiles (‘There is no
matrimony for a heathen’). Therefore, the concept of adultery
also does not apply to intercourse between a Jewish man and a
Gentile woman; rather, the Talmud41 equates such intercourse to
the sin of bestiality. (For the same reason, Gentiles are generally
presumed not to have certain paternity.)

According to the Talmudic Encyclopedia :42 ‘He who has carnal
knowledge of the wife of a Gentile is not liable to the death

THE LAWS AGAINST NON-JEWS 105

penalty, for it is written: “thy fellow’s wife”43 rather than the
alien’s wife; and even the precept that a man “shall cleave unto
his wife”44 which is addressed to the Gentiles does not apply to
a Jew, just there is no matrimony for a heathen; and although a
married Gentile woman is forbidden to the Gentiles, in any case
a Jew is exempted.’

This does not imply that sexual intercourse between a Jewish
man and a Gentile woman is permitted - quite the contrary. But
the main punishment is inflicted on the Gentile woman; she must
be executed, even if she was raped by the Jew: ‘If a Jew has coitus
with a Gentile woman, whether she be a child of three or an adult,
whether married or unmarried, and even if he is a minor aged only
nine years and one day - because he had wilful coitus with her,
she must be killed, as is the case with a beast, because through
her a Jew got into trouble.’45 The Jew, however, must be flogged,
and if he is a Kohen (member of the priestly tribe) he must receive
double the number of lashes, because he has committed a double
offence: a Kohen must not have intercourse with a prostitute, and
all Gentile women are presumed to be prostitutes.46

Status

According to the Halakhah, Jews must not (if they can help it) allow
a Gentile to be appointed to any position of authority, however
small, over Jews. (The two stock examples are ‘commander
over ten soldiers in the Jewish army’ and ‘superintendent of an
irrigation ditch’.) Significantly, this particular rule applies also to
converts to Judaism and to their descendants (through the female
line) for ten generations or ‘so long as the descent is known’.

Gentiles are presumed to be congenital liars, and are disqualified
from testifying in a rabbinical court. In this respect their position
is, in theory, the same as that of Jewish women, slaves and
minors; but in practice it is actually worse. A Jewish woman is
nowadays admitted as a witness to certain matters of fact, when
the rabbinical court ‘believes’ her; a Gentile - never.

A problem therefore arises when a rabbinical court needs to
establish a fact for which there are only Gentile witnesses. An

106 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

important example of this is in cases concerning widows: by
Jewish religious law, a woman can be declared a widow - and
hence free to re-marry - only if the death of her husband is
proven with certainty by means of a witness who saw him die or
identified his corpse. However, the rabbinical court will accept
the hearsay evidence of a Jew who testifies to having heard the
fact in question mentioned by a Gentile eyewitness, provided
the court is satisfied that the latter was speaking casually ( ‘goy
mesial? lefi tummo ’) rather than in reply to a direct question; for
a Gentile’s direct answer to a Jew’s direct question is presumed
to be a lie.47 If necessary, a Jew (preferably a rabbi) will actually
undertake to chat up the Gentile eyewitness and, without asking
a direct question, extract from him a casual statement of the fact
at issue.

Money and Property

1 Gifts. The Talmud bluntly forbids giving a gift to a Gentile.
However, classical rabbinical authorities bent this rule because it
is customary among businessmen to give gifts to business contacts.
It was therefore laid down that a Jew may give a gift to a Gentile
acquaintance, since this is regarded not as a true gift but as a sort of
investment, for which some return is expected. Gifts to ‘unfamiliar
Gentiles’ remain forbidden. A broadly similar rule applies to
almsgiving. Giving alms to a Jewish beggar is an important religious
duty. Alms to Gentile beggars are merely permitted for the sake of
peace. However there are numerous rabbinical warnings against
allowing the Gentile poor to become ‘accustomed’ to receiving
alms from Jews, so that it should be possible to withhold such
alms without arousing undue hostility.

2 Taking of interest. Anti-Gentile discrimination in this matter
has become largely theoretical, in view of the dispensation
(explained in Chapter 3) which in effect allows interest to be
exacted even from a Jewish borrower. However, it is still the case
that granting an interest-free loan to a Jew is recommended as
an act of charity, but from a Gentile borrower it is mandatory

THE LAWS AGAINST NON-JEWS 107

to exact interest. In fact, many - though not all - rabbinical
authorities, including Maimonides, consider it mandatory to exact
as much usury as possible on a loan to a Gentile.

3 Lost property. If a Jew finds property whose probable owner
is Jewish, the finder is strictly enjoined to make a positive effort to
return his find by advertising it publicly. In contrast, the Talmud
and all the early rabbinical authorities not only allow a Jewish
finder to appropriate an article lost by a Gentile, but actually
forbid him or her to return it.48 In more recent times, when laws
were passed in most countries making it mandatory to return lost
articles, the rabbinical authorities instructed Jews to do what these
laws say, as an act of civil obedience to the state - but not as a
religious duty, that is without making a positive effort to discover
the owner if it is not probable that he is Jewish.

4 Deception in business. It is a grave sin to practise any kind
of deception whatsoever against a Jew. Against a Gentile it is
only forbidden to practise direct deception. Indirect deception is
allowed, unless it is likely to cause hostility towards Jews or insult
to the Jewish religion. The paradigmatic example is mistaken
calculation of the price during purchase. If a Jew makes a mistake
unfavourable to himself, it is one’s religious duty to correct him. If
a Gentile is spotted making such a mistake, one need not let him
know about it, but say ‘I rely on your calculation’, so as to forestall
his hostility in case he subsequently discovers his own mistake.

5 Fraud. It is forbidden to defraud a Jew by selling or buying at
an unreasonable price. However, ‘Fraud does not apply to Gentiles,
for it is written: “Do not defraud each man his brother”;49 but a
Gentile who defrauds a Jew should be compelled to make good
the fraud, but should not be punished more severely than a Jew
[in a similar case].’50

6 Theft and robbery. Stealing (without violence) is absolutely
forbidden - as the Shulhan ‘Arnkh so nicely puts it: ‘even from
a Gentile’. Robbery (with violence) is strictly forbidden if the
victim is Jewish. However, robbery of a Gentile by a Jew is not
forbidden outright but only under certain circumstances such as
‘when the Gentiles are not under our rule’, but is permitted ‘when

108 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

they are under our rule’. Rabbinical authorities differ among
themselves as to the precise details of the circumstances under
which a Jew may rob a Gentile, but the whole debate is concerned
only with the relative power of Jews and Gentiles rather than
with universal considerations of justice and humanity. This may
explain why so very few rabbis have protested against the robbery
of Palestinian property in Israel: it was backed by overwhelming
Jewish power.

Gentiles in the Land of Israel

In addition to the general anti-Gentile laws, the Halakhah has
special laws against Gentiles who live in the Land of Israel ( Eretz
Yisra’el) or, in some cases, merely pass through it. These laws are
designed to promote Jewish supremacy in that country.

The exact geographical definition of the term ‘Land of Israel’
is much disputed in the Talmud and the talmudic literature, and
the debate has continued in modern times between the various
shades of zionist opinion. According to the maximalist view, the
Land of Israel includes (in addition to Palestine itself) not only the
whole of Sinai, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, but also considerable
parts of Turkey.51 The more prevalent ‘minimalist’ interpretation
puts the northern border ‘only’ about half way through Syria
and Lebanon, at the latitude of Homs. This view was supported
by Ben-Gurion. However, even those who thus exclude parts of
Syria-Lebanon agree that certain special discriminatory laws
(though less oppressive than in the Land of Israel proper) apply
to the Gentiles of those parts, because that territory was included
in David’s kingdom. In all talmudic interpretations the Land of
Israel includes Cyprus.

I shall now list a few of the special laws concerning Gentiles in
the Land of Israel. Their connection with actual zionist practice
will be quite apparent.

The Halakhah forbids Jews to sell immovable property - fields
and houses - in the Land of Israel to Gentiles. In Syria, the sale
of houses (but not of fields) is permitted.

THE LAWS AGAINST NON-JEWS 109

Leasing a house in the Land of Israel to a Gentile is permitted
under two conditions. First, that the house shall not be used for
habitation but for other purposes, such as storage. Second, that
three or more adjoining houses shall not be so leased.

These and several other rules are explained as follows: ... ‘so
that you shall not allow them to camp on the ground, for if they
do not possess land, their sojourn there will be temporary.’52
Even temporary Gentile presence may only be tolerated ‘when
the Jews are in exile, or when the Gentiles are more powerful
than the Jews,’ but

When the Jews are more powerful than the Gentiles we are forbidden to
let an idolator among us; even a temporary resident or itinerant trader
shall not be allowed to pass through our land unless he accepts the seven
Noahide precepts,53 for it is written: ‘they shall not dwell in thy land,’54
that is, not even temporarily. If he accepts the seven Noahide precepts,
he becomes a resident alien ( gertoshav ) but it is forbidden to grant the
status of resident alien except at times when the Jubilee is held [that is,
when the Temple stands and sacrifices are offered]. However, during times
when Jubilees are not held it is forbidden to accept anyone who is not a
full convert to Judaism ( gertiedeq).ss

It is therefore clear that - exactly as the leaders and sympathisers
of Gush Emunim say - the whole question to how the Palestinians
ought to be treated is, according to the Halakhah, simply a
question of Jewish power: if Jews have sufficient power, then it
is their religious duty to expel the Palestinians.

All these laws are often quoted by Israeli rabbis and their
zealous followers. For example, the law forbidding the lease of
three adjoining houses to Gentiles was solemnly quoted by a
rabbinical conference held in 1979 to discuss the Camp David
treaties. The conference also declared that according to the
Halakhah even the ‘autonomy’ that Begin was ready to offer to
the Palestinians is too liberal. Such pronouncements - which do
in fact state correctly the position of the Halakhah - are rarely
contested by the zionist ‘left’.

In addition to laws such as those mentioned so far, which are
directed at all Gentiles in the Land of Israel, an even greater evil

110 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

influence arises from special laws against the ancient Canaanites
and other nations who lived in Palestine before its conquest by
Joshua, as well as against the Amalekites. All those nations must
be utterly exterminated, and the Talmud and talmudic literature
reiterate the genocidal biblical exhortations with even greater
vehemence. Influential rabbis, who have a considerable following
among Israeli army officers, identify the Palestinians (or even
all Arabs) with those ancient nations, so that commands like
‘thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth’56 acquire a topical
meaning. In fact, it is not uncommon for reserve soldiers called up
to do a tour of duty in the Gaza Strip to be given an ‘educational
lecture’ in which they are told that the Palestinians of Gaza are
‘like the Amalekites’. Biblical verses exhorting to genocide of the
Midianites57 were solemnly quoted by an important Israeli rabbi
in justification of the Qibbiya massacre,58 and this pronouncement
has gained wide circulation in the Israeli army. There are many
similar examples of bloodthirsty rabbinical pronouncements
against the Palestinians, based on these laws.

Abuse

Under this heading I would like to discuss examples of halakhic
laws whose most important effect is not so much to prescribe
specific anti-Gentile discrimination as to inculcate an attitude
of scorn and hatred towards Gentiles. Accordingly, in this
section I shall not confine myself to quoting from the most
authoritative halakhic sources (as I have done so far) but include
also less fundamental works, which are however widely used in
religious instruction.

Let us begin with the text of some common prayers. In one of the
first sections of the daily morning payer, every devout Jew blesses
God for not making him a Gentile.59 The concluding section of
the daily prayer (which is also used in the most solemn part of
the service on New Year’s day and on Yom Kippur) opens with
the statement: ‘We must praise the Lord of all ... for not making
us like the nations of [all] lands ... for they bow down to vanity
and nothingness and pray to a god that does not help.’60 The

THE LAWS AGAINST NON-JEWS 111

last clause was censored out of the prayer books, but in eastern
Europe it was supplied orally, and has now been restored into
many Israeli-printed prayer books. In the most important section
of the weekday prayer - the ‘eighteen blessings’ - there is a special
curse, originally directed against Christians, Jewish converts to
Christianity and other Jewish heretics: ‘And may the apostates61
have no hope, and all the Christians perish instantly’. This formula
dates from the end of the 1st century, when Christianity was
still a small persecuted sect. Some time before the 14th century
it was softened into: ‘And may the apostates have no hope, and
all the heretics62 perish instantly’, and after additional pressure
into: ‘And may the informers have no hope, and all the heretics
perish instantly’. After the establishment of Israel, the process was
reversed, and many newly printed prayer books reverted to the
second formula, which was also prescribed by many teachers in
religious Israeli schools. After 1967, several congregations close to
Gush Emunim have restored the first version (so far only verbally,
not in print) and now pray daily that the Christians ‘may perish
instantly’. This process of reversion happened in the period when
the Catholic Church (under Pope John XXIII) removed from its
Good Friday service a prayer which asked the Lord to have mercy
on Jews, heretics etc. This prayer was thought by most Jewish
leaders to be offensive and even antisemitic.

Apart from the fixed daily prayers, a devout Jew must utter
special short blessings on various occasions, both good and bad
(for example, while putting on a new piece of clothing, eating a
seasonal fruit for the first time that year, seeing powerful lightning,
hearing bad news, etc). Some of these occasional prayers serve to
inculcate hatred and scorn for all Gentiles. We have mentioned
in Chapter 2 the rule according to which a pious Jew must utter
a curse when passing near a Gentile cemetery, whereas he must
bless God when passing near a Jewish cemetery. A similar rule
applies to the living; thus, when seeing a large Jewish population
a devout Jew must praise God, while upon seeing a large Gentile
population he must utter a curse. Nor are buildings exempt: the
Talmud lays down63 that a Jew who passes near an inhabited non-
Jewish dwelling must ask God to destroy it, whereas if the building

112 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

is in ruins he must thank the Lord of Vengeance. (Naturally, the
rules are reversed for Jewish houses.) This rule was easy to keep
for Jewish peasants who lived in their own villages or for small
urban communities living in all-Jewish townships or quarters.
Under the conditions of classical Judaism, however, it became
impracticable and was therefore confined to churches and places
of worship of other religions (except Islam).64 In this connection,
the rule was further embroidered by custom: it became customary
to spit (usually three times) upon seeing a church or a crucifix, as
an embellishment to the obligatory formula of regret.65 Sometimes
insulting biblical verses were also added.66

There is also a series of rules forbidding any expression of
praise for Gentiles or for their deeds, except where such praise
implies an even greater praise of Jews and things Jewish. This
rule is still observed by Orthodox Jews. For example, the writer
Agnon, when interviewed on the Israeli radio upon his return
from Stockholm, where he received the Nobel Prize for literature,
praised the Swedish Academy, but hastened to add: ‘I am not
forgetting that it is forbidden to praise Gentiles, but here there
is a special reason for my praise’ - that is, that they awarded the
prize to a Jew.

Similarly, it is forbidden to join any manifestation of popular
Gentile rejoicing, except where failing to join in might cause
‘hostility’ towards Jews, in which case a ‘minimal’ show of joy
is allowed.

In addition to the rules mentioned so far, there are many others
whose effect is to inhibit human friendship between Jew and
Gentile. I shall mention two examples: the rule on ‘libation wine’
and that on preparing food for a Gentile on Jewish holy days.

A religious Jew must not drink any wine in whose preparation
a Gentile had any part whatsoever. Wine in an open bottle, even
if prepared wholly by Jews, becomes banned if a Gentile so much
as touches the bottle or passes a hand over it. The reason given
by the rabbis is that all Gentiles are not only idolators but must
be presumed to be malicious to boot, so that they are likely to
dedicate (by a whisper, gesture or thought) as ‘libation’ to their
idol any wine which a Jew is about to drink. This law applies in

THE LAWS AGAINST NON-JEWS 113

full force to all Christians, and in a slightly attenuated form also
to Muslims. (An open bottle of wine touched by a Christian must
be poured away, but if touched by a Muslim it can be sold or given
away, although it may not be drunk by a Jew.) The law applies
equally to Gentile atheists (how can one be sure that they are not
merely pretending to be atheists?) but not to Jewish atheists.

The laws against doing work on the sabbath apply to a lesser
extent on other holy days. In particular, on a holy day which does
not happen to fall on a Saturday it is permitted to do any work
required for preparing food to be eaten during the holy day or
days. Legally, this is defined as preparing a ‘soul’s food’ (okhel
nefesh ); but ‘soul’ is interpreted to mean ‘Jew’, and ‘Gentiles and
dogs’ are explicitly excluded.67 There is, however, a dispensation
in favour of powerful Gentiles, whose hostility can be dangerous:
it is permitted to cook food on a holy day for a visitor belonging
to this category, provided he is not actively encouraged to come
and eat.

An important effect of all these laws - quite apart from their
application in practice - is in the attitude created by their constant
study which, as part of the study of the Halakhah, is regarded by
classical Judaism as a supreme religious duty. Thus an Orthodox
Jew learns from his earliest youth, as part of his sacred studies,
that Gentiles are compared to dogs, that it is a sin to praise
them, and so on and so forth. As a matter of fact, in this respect
textbooks for beginners have a worse effect than the Talmud
and the great talmudic codes. One reason for this is that such
elementary texts give more detailed explanations, phrased so as to
influence young and uneducated minds. Out of a large number of
such texts, I have chosen the one which is currently most popular
in Israel and has been reprinted in many cheap editions, heavily
subsidised by the Israeli government. It is The Book of Education,
written by an anonymous rabbi in early 14th century Spain. It
explains the 613 religious obligations (mitzvot) of Judaism in the
order in which they are supposed to be found in the Pentateuch
according to the talmudic interpretation (discussed in Chapter 3).
It owes its lasting influence and popularity to the clear and easy
Hebrew style in which it is written.

114 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

A central didactic aim of this book is to emphasise the ‘correct’
meaning of the Bible with respect to such terms as ‘fellow’, ‘friend’
or ‘man’ (which we have referred to in Chapter 3). Thus §219,
devoted to the religious obligation arising from the verse ‘thou
shalt love thy fellow as thyself’, is entitled: ‘A religious obligation
to love Jews’, and explains:

To love every Jew strongly means that we should care for a Jew and his
money just as one cares for oneself and one's own money, for it is written:
'thou shalt love thy fellow as thyself' and our sages of blessed memory
said: 'what is hateful to you do not do to your friend' ... and many other
religious obligations follow from this, because one who loves one's friend
as oneself will not steal his money, or commit adultery with his wife, or
defraud him of his money, or deceive him verbally, or steal his land, or harm
him in any way. Also many other religious obligations depend on this, as is
known to any reasonable man.

In §322, dealing with the duty to keep a Gentile slave enslaved for
ever (whereas a Jewish slave must be set free after seven years),
the following explanation is given:

And at the root of this religious obligation [is the fact that] the Jewish
people are the best of the human species, created to know their Creator and
worship Him, and worthy of having slaves to serve them. And if they will
not have slaves of other peoples, they would have to enslave their brothers,
who would thus be unable to serve the Lord, blessed be He. Therefore we
are commanded to possess those for our service, after they are prepared for
this and after idolatory is removed from their speech so that there should
not be danger in our houses,68 and this is the intention of the verse ‘but
over your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another
with rigour',69 so that you will not have to enslave your brothers, who are
all ready to worship Cod.

In §545, dealing with the religious obligation to exact interest
on money lent to Gentiles, the law is stated as follows: ‘That we
are commanded to demand interest from Gentiles when we lend
money to them, and we must not lend to them without interest.’
The explanation is:

THE LAWS AGAINST NON-JEWS 115

And at the root of this religious obligation is that we should not do any
act of mercy except to the people who know God and worship Him; and
when we refrain from doing merciful deed to the rest of mankind and do
so only to the former, we are being tested that the main part of love and
mercy to them is because they follow the religion of God, blessed be He.
Behold, with this intention our reward [from God] when we withhold mercy
from the others is equal to that for doing [merciful deeds] to members of
our own people.

Similar distinctions are made in numerous other passages. In
explaining the ban against delaying a worker’s wage (§238)
the author is careful to point out that the sin is less serious if
the worker is Gentile. The prohibition against cursing (§239) is
entitled ‘Not to curse any Jew, whether man or woman’. Similarly,
the prohibitions against giving misleading advice, hating other
people, shaming them or taking revenge on them (§§240, 245,
246, 247) apply only to fellow-Jews.

The ban against following Gentile customs (§262) means that
Jews must not only ‘remove themselves’ from Gentiles, but also
‘speak ill of all their behaviour, even of their dress’.

It must be emphasised that the explanations quoted above do
represent correctly the teaching of the Halakhah. The rabbis and,
even worse, the apologetic ‘scholars of Judaism’ know this very
well and for this reason they do not try to argue against such
views inside the Jewish community; and of course they never
mention them outside it. Instead, they vilify any Jew who raises
these matters within earshot of Gentiles, and they issue deceitful
denials in which the art of equivocation reaches its summit. For
example, they state, using general terms, the importance which
Judaism attaches to mercy; but what they forget to point out is that
according to the Halakhah ‘mercy’ means mercy towards Jews.

Anyone who lives in Israel knows how deep and widespread
these attitudes of hatred and cruelty towards all Gentiles are among
the majority of Israeli Jews. Normally these attitudes are disguised
from the outside world, but since the establishment of the State of
Israel, the 1967 war and the rise of Begin, a significant minority
of Jews, both in Israel and abroad, have gradually become more

116 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

open about such matters. In recent years the inhuman precepts
according to which servitude is the ‘natural’ lot of Gentiles have
been publicly quoted in Israel, even on TV, by Jewish farmers
exploiting Arab labour, particularly child labour. Gush Emunim
leaders have quoted religious precepts which enjoin Jews to
oppress Gentiles, as a justification of the attempted assassination
of Palestinian mayors and as divine authority for their own plan
to expel all the Arabs from Palestine.

While many Zionists reject these positions politically, their
standard counter-arguments are based on considerations of
expediency and Jewish self-interest, rather than on universally
valid principles of humanism and ethics. For example, they
argue that the exploitation and oppression of Palestinians by
Israelis tends to corrupt Israeli society, or that the expulsion of
the Palestinians is impracticable under present political conditions,
or that Israeli acts of terror against the Palestinians tend to isolate
Israel internationally. In principle, however, virtually all Zionists
- and in particular ‘left’ Zionists - share the deep anti-Gentile
attitudes which Orthodox Judaism keenly promotes.

Attitudes to Christianity and Islam

In the foregoing, several examples of the rabbinical attitudes to
these two religions were given in passing. But it will be useful to
summarise these attitudes here.

Judaism is imbued with a very deep hatred towards Christianity,
combined with ignorance about it. This attitude was clearly
aggravated by the Christian persecutions of Jews, but is largely
independent of them. In fact, it dates from the time when
Christianity was still weak and persecuted (not least by Jews),
and it was shared by Jews who had never been persecuted by
Christians or who were even helped by them. Thus, Maimonides
was subjected to Muslim persecutions by the regime of the
Almohads and escaped from them first to the crusaders’ Kingdom
of Jerusalem, but this did not change his views in the least. This
deeply negative attitude is based on two main elements.

THE LAWS AGAINST NON-JEWS 117

First, on hatred and malicious slanders against Jesus. The
traditional view of Judaism on Jesus must of course be sharply
distinguished from the nonsensical controversy between
antisemites and Jewish apologists concerning the ‘responsibility’
for his execution. Most modern scholars of that period admit
that due to the lack of original and contemporary accounts, the
late composition of the Gospels and the contradictions between
them, accurate historical knowledge of the circumstances of Jesus’
execution is not available. In any case, the notion of collective
and inherited guilt is both wicked and absurd. However, what is
at issue here is not the actual facts about Jesus, but the inaccurate
and even slanderous reports in the Talmud and post-talmudic
literature - which is what Jews believed until the 19th century
and many, especially in Israel, still believe. For these reports
certainly played an important role in forming the Jewish attitude
to Christianity.

According to the Talmud, Jesus was executed by a proper
rabbinical court for idolatry, inciting other Jews to idolatry, and
contempt of rabbinical authority. All classical Jewish sources
which mention his execution are quite happy to take respon¬
sibility for it; in the talmudic account the Romans are not even
mentioned.

The more popular accounts - which were nevertheless taken
quite seriously - such as the notorious Toldot Yeshu are even
worse, for in addition to the above crimes they accuse him of
witchcraft. The very name ‘Jesus’ was for Jews a symbol of all
that is abominable, and this popular tradition still persists.70 The
Gospels are equally detested, and they are not allowed to be
quoted (let alone taught) even in modern Israeli Jewish schools.

Secondly, for theological reasons, mostly rooted in ignorance,
Christianity as a religion is classed by rabbinical teaching as
idolatry. This is based on a crude interpretation of the Christian
doctrines on the Trinity and Incarnation. All the Christian
emblems and pictorial representations are regarded as ‘idols’
- even by those Jews who literally worship scrolls, stones or
personal belongings of ‘Holy Men’.

118 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

The attitude of Judaism towards Islam is, in contrast, relatively
mild. Although the stock epithet given to Muhammad is ‘madman’
(‘meshugga’), this was not nearly as offensive as it may sound
now, and in any case it pales before the abusive terms applied to
Jesus. Similarly, the Qur’an - unlike the New Testament - is not
condemned to burning. It is not honoured in the same way as
Islamic law honours the Jewish sacred scrolls, but is treated as an
ordinary book. Most rabbinical authorities agree that Islam is not
idolatry (although some leaders of Gush Emunim now choose to
ignore this). Therefore the Halakhah decrees that Muslims should
not be treated by Jews any worse than ‘ordinary’ Gentiles. But
also no better. Again, Maimonides can serve as an illustration. He
explicitly states that Islam is not idolatry, and in his philosophical
works he quotes, with great respect, many Islamic philosophical
authorities. He was, as I have mentioned before, personal physician
to Saladin and his family, and by Saladin’s order he was appointed
Chief over all Egypt’s Jews. Yet, the rules he lays down against
saving a Gentile’s life (except in order to avert danger to Jews)
apply equally to Muslims.

6

POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES

The persistent attitudes of classical Judaism toward non-Jews
strongly influence its followers, Orthodox Jews and those who can
be regarded as its continuators, Zionists. Through the latter it also
influences the policies of the State of Israel. Since 1967, as Israel
becomes more and more ‘Jewish’, so its policies are influenced
more by Jewish ideological considerations than by those of a
coldly conceived imperial interest. This ideological influence is
not usually perceived by foreign experts, who tend to ignore or
downplay the influence of the Jewish religion on Israeli policies.
This explains why many of their predictions are incorrect.

In fact, more Israeli government crises are caused by religious
reasons, often trivial, than by any other cause. The space devoted
by the Hebrew press to discussion of the constantly occurring
quarrels between the various religious groups, or between the
religious and the secular, is greater than that given any other
subject, except in times of war or of security-related tension. At
the time of writing, early August 1993, some topics of major
interest to readers of the Hebrew press are: whether soldiers killed
in action who are sons of non-Jewish mothers will be buried in
a segregated area in Israeli military cemeteries; whether Jewish
religious burial associations, who have a monopoly over the burial
of all Jews except kibbutz members, will be allowed to continue
their custom of circumcising the corpses of non-circumcised Jews
before burying them (and without asking the family’s permission);
whether the import of non-kosher meat to Israel, banned
unofficially since the establishment of the state, will be allowed
or banned by law. There are many more issues of this kind which

119

120 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

are of a much greater interest to the Israeli-Jewish public than, let
us say, the negotiations with the Palestinians and Syria.

The attempts made by a few Israeli politicians to ignore the
factors of ‘Jewish ideology’ in favour of purely imperial interests
have led to disastrous results. In early 1974, after its partial defeat
in the Yom Kippur War, Israel had a vital interest in stopping the
renewed influence of the PLO, which had not yet been recognised
by the Arab states as the solely legitimate representative of the
Palestinians. The Israeli government conceived of a plan to
support Jordanian influence in the West Bank, which was quite
considerable at the time. When King Hussein was asked for his
support, he demanded a visible quid pro quo. It was arranged
that his chief West Bank supporter, Sheikh Jabri of Hebron, who
ruled the southern part of the West Bank with an iron fist and
with approval of then Defence minister Moshe Dayan, would give
a party for the region’s notables in the courtyard of his palatial
residence in Hebron. The party, in honour of the king’s birthday,
would feature the public display of Jordanian flags and would
begin a pro-Jordanian campaign. But the religious settlers in the
nearby Kiryat-Arba, who were only a handful at the time, heard
about the plan and threatened Prime Minister Golda Meir and
Dayan with vigorous protests since, as they put it, displaying a flag
of a ‘non-Jewish state’ within the Land of Israel contradicts the
sacred principle which states that this land ‘belongs’ only to Jews.
Since this principle is accepted by all Zionists, the government had
to bow to their demands and order Sheikh Jabri not to display
any Jordanian flags. Thereupon Jabri, who was deeply humiliated,
cancelled the party and, at the Fez meeting of the Arab League
which occurred soon after, King Hussein voted to recognise the
PLO as the sole representative of the Palestinians. For the bulk of
Israeli-Jewish public the current negotiations about ‘autonomy’
are likewise influenced more by such Jewish ideological considera¬
tions than by any others.

The conclusion from this consideration of Israeli policies,
supported by an analysis of classical Judaism, must be that analyses
of Israeli policy-making which do not emphasise the importance
of its unique character as a ‘Jewish state’ must be mistaken. In

POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES 121

particular, the facile comparison of Israel to other cases of Western
imperialism or to settler states, is incorrect. During apartheid,
the land of South Africa was officially divided into 87 per cent
which ‘belonged’ to the whites and 13 per cent which was said
officially to ‘belong’ to the Blacks. In addition, officially sovereign
states, embodied with all the symbols of sovereignty, the so-called
Bantustans, were established. But ‘Jewish ideology’ demands that
no part of the Land of Israel can be recognised as ‘belonging’
to non-Jews and that no signs of sovereignty, such as Jordanian
flags, can be officially allowed to be displayed. The principle of
Redemption of the Land demands that ideally all the land, and
not merely, say, 87 per cent, will in time be ‘redeemed’, that is,
become owned by Jews. ‘Jewish ideology’ prohibits that very
convenient principle of imperialism, already known to Romans
and followed by so many secular empires, and best formulated
by Lord Cromer: ‘We do not govern Egypt, we govern the
governors of Egypt.’ Jewish ideology forbids such recognition;
it also forbids a seemingly respectful attitude to any ‘non-Jewish
governors’ within the Land of Israel. The entire apparatus of client
kings, sultans, maharajas and chiefs or, in more modern times,
of dependent dictators, so convenient in other cases of imperial
hegemony, cannot be used by Israel within the area considered
part of the Land of Israel. Hence the fears, commonly expressed by
Palestinians, of being offered a ‘Bantustan’ are totally groundless.
Only if numerous Jewish lives are lost in war, as happened both in
1973 and in the 1983-5 war aftermath in Lebanon, is an Israeli
retreat conceivable since it can be justified by the principle that
the sanctity of Jewish life is more important than other considera¬
tions. What is not possible, as long as Israel remains a ‘Jewish
state’, is the Israeli grant of a fake, but nevertheless symbolically
real sovereignty, or even of real autonomy, to non-Jews within
the Land of Israel for merely political reasons. Israel, like some
other countries, is an exclusivist state, but Israeli exclusivism is
peculiar to itself.

In addition to Israeli policies it may be surmised that the ‘Jewish
ideology’ influences also a significant part, maybe a majority, of
the diaspora Jews. While the actual implementation of Jewish

122 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

ideology depends on Israel being strong, this in turn depends
to a considerable extent on the support which diaspora Jews,
particularly US Jews, give to Israel. The image of the diaspora
Jews and their attitudes to non-Jews, is quite different from the
attitudes of classical Judaism, as described above. This discrepancy
is most obvious in English-speaking countries, where the greatest
falsifications of Judaism regularly occur. The situation is worst
in the USA and Canada, the two states whose support for Israeli
policies, including policies which most glaringly contradict the
basic human rights of non-Jews, is strongest.

US support for Israel, when considered not in abstract but in
concrete detail, cannot be adequately explained only as a result
of American imperial interests. The strong influence wielded
by the organised Jewish community in the USA in support of
all Israeli policies must also be taken into account in order to
explain the Middle East policies of American administrations.
This phenomenon is even more noticeable in the case of Canada,
whose Middle Eastern interests cannot be considered as important,
but whose loyal dedication to Israel is even greater than that of
the USA. In both countries (and also in France, Britain and many
other states) Jewish organisations support Israel with about the
same loyalty which communist parties accorded to the USSR for
so long. Also, many Jews who appear to be active in defending
human rights and who adopt non-conformist views on other
issues do, in cases affecting Israel, display a remarkable degree
of totalitarianism and are in the forefront of the defence of all
Israeli policies. It is well known in Israel that the chauvinism and
fanaticism in supporting Israel displayed by organised diaspora
Jews is much greater (especially since 1967) than the chauvinism
shown by an average Israeli Jew. This fanaticism is especially
marked in Canada and the USA but because of the incomparably
greater political importance of the USA, I will concentrate on the
latter. It should, however, be noted that we also find Jews whose
views of Israeli policies are not different from those held by the
rest of the society (with due regard to the factors of geography,
income, social position and so on).

POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES 123

Why should some American Jews display chauvinism, sometimes
extreme, and others not? We should begin by observing the
social and therefore also the political importance of the Jewish
organisations which are of an exclusive nature: they admit no
non-Jews on principle. (This exclusivism is in amusing contrast
with their hunt to condemn the most obscure non-Jewish club
which refuses to admit Jews.) Those who can be called ‘organised
Jews’, and who spend most of their time outside work hours
mostly in the company of other Jews, can be presumed to uphold
Jewish exclusivism and to preserve the attitudes of the classical
Judaism to non-Jews. Under present circumstances they cannot
openly express these attitudes toward non-Jews in the USA where
non-Jews constitute more than 97 per cent of the population.
They compensate for this by expressing their real attitudes in
their support of the ‘Jewish state’ and the treatment it metes to
the non-Jews of the Middle East.

How else can we explain the enthusiasm displayed by so many
American rabbis in support of, let us say, Martin Luther King,
compared with their lack of support for the rights of Palestinians,
even for their individual human rights ? How else can we explain
the glaring contradiction between the attitudes of classical
Judaism toward non-Jews, which include the rule that their lives
should not be saved except for the sake of Jewish interest, with
the support of the US rabbis and organised Jews for the rights
of the Blacks? After all, Martin Luther King and the majority of
American Blacks are non-Jews. Even if only the conservative and
Orthodox Jews, who together constitute the majority of organised
American Jews, are considered to hold such opinions about the
non-Jews, the other part of organised US Jewry, the Reform, had
never opposed them, and, in my view, show themselves to be
quite influenced by them.

Actually the explanation of this apparent contradiction is easy.
It should be recalled that Judaism, especially in its classical form,
is totalitarian in nature. The behaviour of supporters of other
totalitarian ideologies of our times was not different from that of
the organised American Jews. Stalin and his supporters never tired
of condemning the discrimination against the American or the

124 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

South African Blacks, especially in the midst of the worst crimes
committed within the USSR. The South African apartheid regime
was tireless in its denunciations of the violations of human rights
committed either by communist or by other African regimes, and
so were its supporters in other countries. Many similar examples
can be given. The support of democracy or of human rights is
therefore meaningless or even harmful and deceitful when it does
not begin with self-critique and with support of human rights
when they are violated by one’s own group. Any support of human
rights in general by a Jew which does not include the support of
human rights of non-Jews whose rights are being violated by the
‘Jewish state’ is as deceitful as the support of human rights by a
Stalinist. The apparent enthusiasm displayed by American rabbis
or by the Jewish organisations in the USA during the 1950s and
the 1960s in support of the Blacks in the South, was motivated
only by considerations of Jewish self-interest, just as was the
communist support for the same Blacks. Its purpose in both cases
was to try to capture the Black community politically, in the
Jewish case to an unthinking support of Israeli policies in the
Middle East.

Therefore, the real test facing both Israeli and diaspora Jews
is the test of their self-criticism which must include the critique
of the Jewish past. The most important part of such a critique
must be detailed and honest confrontation of the Jewish attitude
to non-Jews. This is what many Jews justly demand from non-
Jews: to confront their own past and so become aware of the
discrimination and persecutions inflicted on the Jews. In the last
40 years the number of non-Jews killed by Jews is by far greater
than the number of the Jews killed by non-Jews. The extent of the
persecution and discrimination against non-Jews inflicted by the
‘Jewish state’ with the support of organised diaspora Jews is also
enormously greater than the suffering inflicted on Jews by regimes
hostile to them. Although the struggle against antisemitism (and of
all other forms of racism) should never cease, the struggle against
Jewish chauvinism and exclusivism, which must include a critique
of classical Judaism, is now of equal or greater importance.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

Chapter 1: A Closed Utopia?

1. Walter Laquer, History of Zionism, Schocken Publishers, Tel Aviv,
1974, in Hebrew.

2. See Yedioth Ahronot, 11 April 1992.

3. In Hugh Trevor-Roper, Renaissance Essays, Fontana Press, London,
1985.

4. See Moses Hadas, Hellenistic Culture, Fusion and Diffusion,
Columbia University Press, New York, 1959, especially chapters
VII and XX.

Chapter 2: Prejudice and Prevarication

1. The Jews themselves universally described themselves as a religious
community or, to be precise, a religious nation. ‘Our people is a
people only because of the Torah (Religious Law)’ - this saying by
one of the highest authorities, Rabbi Sa‘adia Hagga’on who lived
in the 10th century, has become proverbial.

2. By Emperor Joseph II in 1782.

3. All this is usually omitted in vulgar Jewish historiography, in order
to propagate the myth that the Jews kept their religion by miracle
or by some peculiar mystic force.

4. For example, in her Origins of Totalitarianism, a considerable part
of which is devoted to Jews.

5. Before the end of the 18th century, German Jews were allowed by
their rabbis to write German in Hebrew letters only, on pain of being
excommunicated, flogged, etc.

6. When by a deal between the Roman Empire and the Jewish leaders
(the dynasty of the Nesi’im) all the Jews in the Empire were subjected
to the fiscal and disciplinary authority of these leaders and their
rabbinical courts, who for their part undertook to keep order among
the Jews.

7. I write this, being a non-socialist myself. But I will honour and
respect people with whose principles I disagree, if they make an
honest effort to be true to their principles. In contrast, there is
nothing so despicable as the dishonest use of universal principles,

125

126 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

whether true or false, for the selfish ends of an individual or, even
worse, of a group.

8. In fact, many aspects of Orthodox Judaism were apparently derived
from Sparta, through the baneful political influence of Plato. On
this subject, see the excellent comments of Moses Hadas, Hellenistic
Culture, Fusion and Diffusion, Columbia University Press, New
York, 1959.

9. Including the geography of Palestine and indeed its very location.
This is shown by the orientation of all synagogues in countries such
as Poland and Russia: Jews are supposed to pray facing Jerusalem,
and the European Jews, who had only a vague idea where Jerusalem
was, always assumed it was due east, whereas for them it was in fact
more nearly due south.

10. Throughout this chapter I use the term ‘classical Judaism’ to refer to
rabbinical Judaism as it emerged after about AD 800 and lasted up
to the end of the 18th century. I avoid the term ‘normative Judaism’,
which many authors use with roughly the same meaning, because
in my view it has unjustified connotations.

1 1 . The works of Hellenistic Jews, such as Philo of Alexandria, constitute
an exception. They were written before classical Judaism achieved
a position of exclusive hegemony. They were indeed subsequently
suppressed among the Jews and survived only because Christian
monks found them congenial.

12. During the whole period from AD 100 to 1500 there were written
two travel books and one history of talmudic studies - a short,
inaccurate and dreary book, written moreover by a despised
philosopher (Abraham ben-David, Spain, c. 1170).

13. Me’or ‘Eynayim by ‘Azarya de Rossi of Ferrara, Italy, 1574.

14. The best known cases were in Spain; for example (to use their
adopted Christian names) Master Alfonso of Valladolid, converted
in 1320, and Paul of Santa Maria, converted in 1390 and appointed
bishop of Burgos in 1415. But many other cases can be cited from
all over west Europe.

15. Certainly the tone, and also the consequences, were very much better
than in disputations in which Christians were accused of heresy - for
example those in which Peter Abelard or the strict Franciscans were
condemned.

16. The stalinist and Chinese examples are sufficiently well known.
However, it is worth mentioning that the persecution of honest
historians in Germany began very early. In 1874, H. Ewald, a
professor at Goettingen, was imprisoned for expressing ‘incorrect’
views on the conquests of Frederick II, a hundred years earlier. The
situation in Israel is analogous: the worst attacks against me were

NOTES AND REFERENCES 127

provoked not by the violent terms I employ in my condemnations
of zionism and the oppression of Palestinians, but by an early article
of mine about the role of Jews in the slave trade, in which the latest
case quoted dated from 1870. That article was published before the
1967 war; nowadays its publication would be impossible.

17. In the end a few other passages also had to be removed, such as those
which seemed theologically absurd (for example, where God is said
to pray to Himself or physically to carry out some of the practices
enjoined on the individual Jew) or those which celebrated too freely
the sexual escapades of ancient rabbis.

18. Tractate Berakbot, p. 58b.

19. ‘Your mother shall be sore confounded; she that bare you shall be
ashamed ...’, Jeremiah, 50:12.

20. Published by Boys Town, Jerusalem, and edited by Moses Hyamson,
one of the most reputable scholars of Judaism in Britain.

21. The supposed founders of the Sadducean sect.

22. I am happy to say that in a recent new translation (Chicago
University Press) the word ‘Blacks’ does appear, but the heavy and
very expensive volume is unlikely, as yet, to get into the ‘wrong’
hands. Similarly, in early 19th century England, radical books (such
as Godwin’s) were allowed to appear, provided they were issued in
a very expensive edition.

23. An additional fact can be mentioned in this connection. It was
perfectly possible, and apparently respectable, for a Jewish scholar
of Islam, Bernard Lewis (who formerly taught in London and is
now teaching in the USA) to publish an article in Encounter, in
which he points out many passages in Islamic literature which in his
view are anti-Black, but none of which even approaches the passage
quoted above. It would be quite impossible for anyone now, or in the
last thirty years, to discuss in any reputable American publication
the above passage or the many other offensive anti-Black talmudic
passages. But without a criticism of all sides the attack on Islam
alone reduces to mere slander.

Chapter 3: Orthodoxy and Interpretation

1. As in Chapter 2, I use the term ‘classical Judaism’ to refer to
rabbinical Judaism in the period from about AD 800 up to the end
of the 1 8th century. This period broadly coincides with the Jewish
Middle Ages, since for most Jewish communities medieval conditions
persisted much longer than for the west European nations, namely
up to the period of the Lrench Revolution. Thus what I call ‘classical
Judaism’ can be regarded as medieval Judaism.

128 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

2. Exodus, 15:11.

3. Ibid., 20:3-6.

4. Jeremiah, 10; the same theme is echoed still later by the Second
Isaiah, see Isaiah, 44.

5. The cabbala is of course an esoteric doctrine, and its detailed
study was confined to scholars. In Europe, especially after about
1750, extreme measures were taken to keep it secret and forbid its
study except by mature scholars and under strict supervision. The
uneducated Jewish masses of eastern Europe had no real knowledge
of cabbalistic doctrine; but the cabbala percolated to them in the
form of superstition and magic practices.

6. Many contemporary Jewish mystics believe that the same end may
be accomplished more quickly by war against the Arabs, by the
expulsion of the Palestinians, or even by establishing many Jewish
settlements on the West Bank. The growing movement for building
the Third Temple is also based on such ideas.

7. The Hebrew word used here - yihud, meaning literally union-in-
seclusion - is the same one employed in legal texts (dealing with
marriage etc.) to refer to sexual intercourse.

8. The so-called Qedushah Shlishit (Third Holiness), inserted in the
prayer Uva Letzion towards the end of the morning service.

9. Numbers, 29.

10. The power of Satan, and his connection with non-Jews, is illustrated
by a widespread custom, established under cabbalistic influence in
many Jewish communities from the 17th century. A Jewish woman
returning from her monthly ritual bath of purification (after which
sexual intercourse with her husband is mandatory) must beware
of meeting one of the four satanic creatures: Gentile, pig, dog or
donkey. If she does meet any one of them she must take another
bath. The custom was advocated (among others) by Shevet Musar,
a book on Jewish moral conduct first published in 1712, which was
one of the most popular books among Jews in both eastern Europe
and Islamic countries until early this century, and is still widely read
in some Orthodox circles.

11. This is prescribed in minute detail. For example, the ritual hand
washing must not be done under a tap; each hand must be washed
singly, in water from a mug (of prescribed minimal size) held in
the other hand. If one’s hands are really dirty, it is quite impossible
to clean them in this way, but such pragmatic considerations are
obviously irrelevant. Classical Judaism prescribes a great number of
such detailed rituals, to which the cabbala attaches deep significance.
There are, for example, many precise rules concerning behaviour in

NOTES AND REFERENCES 129

a lavatory. A Jew relieving nature in an open space must not do so in
a North-South direction, because North is associated with Satan.

12. ‘Interpretation’ is my own expression. The classical (and present-
day Orthodox) view is that the talmudic meaning, even where it is
contrary to the literal sense, was always the operational one.

13. According to an apocryphal story, a famous 19th century Jewish
heretic observed in this connection that the verse ‘Thou shalt not
commit adultery’ is repeated only twice. ‘Presumably one is therefore
forbidden to eat adultery or to cook it, but enjoying it is all right.’

14. The Hebrew re’akha is rendered by the King James Version (and
most other English translations) somewhat imprecisely as ‘thy
neighbour’. See however II Samuel, 16:17, where exactly the same
word is rendered by the King James Version more correctly as ‘thy
friend’.

15. The Mishnah is remarkably free of all this, and in particular the belief
in demons and witchcraft is relatively rare in it. The Babylonian
Talmud, on the other hand, is full of gross superstitions.

16. Or, to be precise, in many parts of Palestine. Apparently the areas to
which the law applies are those where there was Jewish demographic
predominance around AD 150-200.

17. Therefore non-zionist Orthodox Jews in Israel organise special shops
during sabbatical years, which sell fruits and vegetables grown by
Arabs on Arab land.

18. In the winter of 1945-6, 1 myself, then a boy under 13, participated
in such proceedings. The man in charge of agricultural work in the
religious agricultural school I was then attending was a particularly
pious Jew and thought it would be safe if the crucial act, that of
removing the board, should be performed by an orphan under 13
years old, incapable of being, or making anyone else, guilty of a sin.
(A boy under that age cannot be guilty of a sin; his father, if he has
one, is considered responsible.) Everything was carefully explained
to me beforehand, including the duty to say, ‘I need this board,’
when in fact it was not needed.

19. For example, the Talmud forbids a Jew to enjoy the light of a candle
lit by a Gentile on the sabbath, unless the latter had lit it for his own
use before the Jew entered the room.

20. One of my uncles in pre-1939 Warsaw used a subtler method. He
employed a non-Jewish maid called Marysia and it was his custom
upon waking from his Saturday siesta to say, first quietly, ‘How nice
it would be if’ - and then, raising his voice to a shout, ‘... Marysia
would bring us a cup of tea!’ He was held to be a very pious and
God-fearing man and would never dream of drinking a drop of milk
for a full six hours after eating meat. In his kitchen he had two sinks,

130 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

one for washing up dishes used for eating meat, the other for milk
dishes.

21. Occasionally regrettable mistakes occur, because some of these jobs
are quite cushy, allowing the employee six days off each week. The
town of Bney Braq (near Tel-Aviv), inhabited almost exclusively
by Orthodox Jews, was shaken in the 1960s by a horrible scandal.
Upon the death of the ‘sabbath-Goy’ they had employed for over
twenty years to watch over their water supplies on Saturdays, it was
discovered that he was not really a Christian but a Jew! So when
his successor, a Druze, was hired, the town demanded and obtained
from the government a document certifying that the new employee
is a Gentile of pure Gentile descent. It is reliably rumoured that the
secret police was asked to research this matter.

22. In contrast, elementary Scripture teaching can be done for payment.
This was always considered a low-status job and was badly paid.

23. Another ‘extremely important’ ritual is the blowing of a ram’s horn
on Rosh Hashanah, whose purpose is to confuse Satan.

Chapter 4: The Weight of History

1. See, for example, Jeremiah, 44, especially verses 15-19. For an
excellent treatment of certain aspects of this subject see Raphael
Patai, The Hebreiv Goddess, Ktav, USA, 1967.

2. Ezra, 7:25-26. The last two chapters of this book are mainly
concerned with Ezra’s efforts to segregate the ‘pure’ Jews (‘the holy
seed’) away from ‘the people of the land’ (who were themselves at
least partly of Jewish descent) and break up mixed marriages.

3. W.F. Albright, Recent Discoveries in Bible Lands, Funk & Wagnall,
New York, 1955, p. 103.

4. It is significant that, together with this literary corpus, all the historical
books written by Jews after about 400 BC were also rejected. Until
the 19th century, Jews were quite ignorant of the story of Massadah
and of figures such as Judas Maccabaeus, now regarded by many
(particularly by Christians) as belonging to the ‘very essence’ of
Judaism.

5. Acts, 18:15.

6. Ibid., 25.

7. See note 6 to Chapter 2.

8. Concerning the term ‘classical Judaism’ see note 10 to Chapter 2
and note 1 to Chapter 3.

9. Nobel Prize winners Agnon and Bashevis Singer are examples of
this, but many others can be given, particularly Bialik, the national
Hebrew poet. In his famous poem My Father he describes his saintly

NOTES AND REFERENCES 131

father selling vodka to the drunkard peasants who are depicted
as animals. This very popular poem, taught in all Israeli schools,
is one of the vehicles through which the anti-peasant attitude is
reproduced.

10. So far as the central power of the Jewish Patriarchate was concerned,
the deal was terminated by Theodosius II in a series of laws,
culminating in AD 429; but many of the local arrangements remained
in force.

11. Perhaps another characteristic example is the Parthian empire (until
AD 225) but not enough is known about it. We know, however, that
the establishment of the national Iranian Sasanid empire brought
about an immediate decline of the Jews’ position.

12. This ban extends also to marrying a woman converted to Judaism,
because all Gentile women are presumed by the Halakhah to be
prostitutes.

13. A prohibited marriage is not generally void, and requires a divorce.
Divorce is nominally a voluntary act on the part of the husband,
but under certain circumstances a rabbinical court can coerce him
to ‘will’ it ( kofin oto ‘ad sheyyomar rotzeb ani ).

14. Although Jewish achievements during the Golden Age in Muslim
Spain (1002-1147) were more brilliant, they were not lasting. For
example, most of the magnificent Hebrew poetry of that age was
subsequently forgotten by Jews, and only recovered by them in the
19th or 20th century.

15. During that war, Henry of Trastamara used anti-Jewish propaganda,
although his own mother, Leonor de Guzman, a high Castilian
noblewoman, was partly of Jewish descent. (Only in Spain did
the highest nobility intermarry with Jews.) After his victory he too
employed Jews in the highest financial positions.

16. Until the 18th century the position of serfs in Poland was generally
supposed to be even worse than in Russia. In that century, certain
features of Russian serfdom, such as public sales of serfs, got worse
than in Poland but the central Tsarist government always retained
certain powers over the enslaved peasants, for example the right to
recruit them to the national army.

17. During the preceding period persecutions of Jews were rare. This
is true of the Roman Empire even after serious Jewish rebellions.
Gibbon is correct in praising the liberality of Antonius Pius (and
Marcus Aurelius) to Jews, so soon after the major Bar-Kokhba
rebellion of AD 132-5.

18. This fact, easily ascertainable by examination of the details of each
persecution, is not remarked upon by most general historians in
recent times. An honourable exception is Hugh Trevor-Roper, The

132 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

Rise of Christian Europe, Thames and Hudson, London, 1965, pp.
173-4. Trevor-Roper is also one of the very few modern historians
who mention the predominant Jewish role in the early medieval
slave trade between Christian (and pagan) Europe and the Muslim
world (ibid., pp. 92-3). In order to promote this abomination,
which I have no space to discuss here, Maimonides allowed Jews,
in the name of the Jewish religion, to abduct Gentile children into
slavery; and his opinion was no doubt acted upon or reflected
contemporary practice.

19. Examples can be found in any history of the crusades. See especially
S. Runciman, A History of the Crusades, vol I, book 3, chap 1,
‘The German Crusade’. The subsequent defeat of this host by the
Hungarian army, ‘to most Christians appeared as a just punishment
meted out of high to the murderers of the Jews.’

20. John Stoye, Europe Unfolding 1648-88, Fontana, London, p. 46.

21. This latter feature is of course not mentioned by received Jewish
historiography. The usual punishment for a rebellious, or even
‘impudent’ peasant was impalement.

22. The same can be observed in different regions of a given country. For
example, in Germany, agrarian Bavaria was much more antisemitic
than the industrialised areas.

23. ‘The refusal of the Church to admit that once a Jew always a Jew,
was another cause of pain for an ostentatious Catholic like Drumont.
One of his chief lieutenants, Jules Guerin, has recounted the disgust
he felt when the famous Jesuit, Pere du Lac, remonstrated with him
for attacking some converted Jews named Dreyfus.’ D.W. Brogan,
The Development of Modern France, vol 1, Harper Torchbooks,
New York, 1966, p. 227.

24. Ibid.

25. Let me illustrate the irrational, demonic character which racism
can sometimes acquire with three examples chosen at random. A
major part of the extermination of Europe’s Jews was carried out
in 1942 and early 1943 during the Nazi offensive in Russia, which
culminated in their defeat at Stalingrad. During the eight months
between June 1942 and February 1943 the Nazis probably used more
railway wagons to haul Jews to the gas chambers than to carry much
needed supplies to the army. Before being taken to their death, most
of these Jews, at least in Poland, had been very effectively employed
in production of equipment for the German army. The second, rather
remote, example comes from a description of the Sicilian Vespers in
1282: ‘Every Frenchman they met was struck down. They poured
into the inns frequented by the French and the houses where they
dwelt, sparing neither man nor woman nor child ... The rioters broke

NOTES AND REFERENCES 133

into the Dominican and Franciscan convents, and all the foreign
friars were dragged out and told to pronounce the word ciciri, whose
sound the French tongue could never accurately reproduce. Anyone
who failed in the test was slain.’ (S. Runciman, The Sicilian Vespers,
Cambridge University Press, 1958, p. 215.) The third example is
recent: in the summer of 1980 - following an assassination attempt
by Jewish terrorists in which Mayor Bassam Shak‘a of Nablus lost
both his legs and Mayor Karim Khalaf of Ramallah lost a foot - a
group of Jewish Nazis gathered in the campus of Tel- Aviv University,
roasted a few cats and offered their meat to passers-by as ‘shish-
kebab from the legs of the Arab mayors’. Anyone who witnessed this
macabre orgy - as I did - would have to admit that some horrors
defy explanation in the present state of knowledge.

26. One of the early quirks of Jabotinsky (founder of the party then led
by Begin) was to propose, in about 1912, the creation of two Jewish
states, one in Palestine and the other in Angola: the former, being
poor in natural resources, would be subsidised by the riches of the
latter.

27. Herzl went to Russia to meet von Plehve in August 1903, less than
four months after the hideous Kishinev pogrom, for which the latter
was known to be responsible. Herzl proposed an alliance, based on
their common wish to get most of the Jews out of Russia and, in
the shorter term, to divert Jewish support away from the socialist
movement. The Tsarist minister started the first interview (8 August)
by observing that he regarded himself as ‘an ardent supporter of
zionism’. When Herzl went on to describe the aims of Zionism, von
Plehve interrupted: ‘You are preaching to the converted’. Amos Elon,
Herzl, ‘Am ‘Oved, 1976, pp. 415-19, in Hebrew.

28. Dr Joachim Prinz, Wir Jnden, Berlin, 1934, pp. 150-1.

29. Ibid., pp. 154-5.

30. For example see ibid., p. 136. Even worse expressions of sympathy
with Nazism were voices by the extremist Lohamey Herut Yisra’el
(Stern Gang) as late as 1941. Dr Prinz was, in zionist terms, a ‘dove’.
In the 1970s he even patronised the US Jewish movement Breira,
until he was dissuaded by Golda Meir.

Chapter 5: The Laws Against Non-Jews

1. Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, ‘Laws on Murderers’ 2, 11; Talmudic
Encyclopedia, ‘Goy’.

2. R. Yo’el Sirkis, Bayit Hadash, commentary on Beyt Josef, ‘Yoreh
De‘ah’ 158. The two rules just mentioned apply even if the Gentile
victim is ger toshav, that is a ‘resident alien’ who has undertaken in

134 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

front of three Jewish witnesses to keep the ‘seven Noahide precepts’
(seven biblical laws considered by the Talmud to be addressed to
Gentiles).

3. R. David Halevi (Poland, 17th century), Turey Zahav on Shulhan
‘Arukh, ‘Yoreh De‘ah’ 158.

4. This concept of ‘hostility’ will be discussed below.

5. Talmudic Encyclopedia, ‘Ger’ (= convert to Judaism).

6. For example, R. Shabbtay Kohen (mid 17th century), Siftey Koben
on Shulhan ‘Arukh, ‘Yoreh De‘ah, 158: ‘But in times of war it was
the custom to kill them with one’s own hands, for it is said, “The best
of Gentiles - kill him!”’ Siftey Kohen and Turey Zahay (see note 3)
are the two major classical commentaries on the Shulhan ‘Arukh.

7. Colonel Rabbi A. Avidan (Zemel), ‘Tohar hannesheq le’or hahalakhah’
(= ‘Purity of weapons in the light of the Halakhah’) in Be’iqvot
milhemet yom hakkippurim - pirqey hagut, halakhah umehqar
(In the Wake of the Yom Kippur War - Chapters of Meditation,
Halakhah and Research), Central Region Command, 1973: quoted
in Ha’olam Hazzeh, 5 January 1974; also quoted by David Shaham,
‘A chapter of meditation’, Hotam, 28 March 1974; and by Amnon
Rubinstein, ‘Who falsifies the Halakhah?’ Ma’ariv, 13 October 1975.
Rubinstein reports that the booklet was subsequently withdrawn
from circulation by order of the Chief of General Staff, presumably
because it encouraged soldiers to disobey his own orders; but he
complains that Rabbi Avidan has not been court-martialled, nor
has any rabbi - military or civil - taken exception to what he had
written.

8. R. Shim'on Weiser, ‘Purity of weapons - an exchange of letters’ in
Niv Hammidrashiyyah Yearbook of Midrashiyyat No‘am, 1974,
pp. 29-31. The yearbook is in Hebrew, English and French, but the
material quoted here is printed in Hebrew only.

9. Psalms, 42:2.

10. ‘Thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven’,
Deuteronomy, 25:19. Cf. also I Samuel, 15:3: ‘Now go and smite
Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not;
but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep,
camel and ass.’

11. We spare the reader most of these rather convoluted references and
quotes from talmudic and rabbinical sources. Such omissions are
marked [ ... ]. The rabbi’s own conclusions are reproduced in full.

12. The Tosafot (literally, Addenda) are a body of scholia to the Talmud,
dating from the llth-13th centuries.

13. Persons guilty of such crimes are even allowed to rise to high public
positions. An illustration of this is the case of Shmu’el Lahis, who

NOTES AND REFERENCES 135

was responsible for the massacre of between 50 and 75 Arab peasants
imprisoned in a mosque after their village had been conquered by the
Israeli army during the 1948-9 war. Following a pro forma trial, he
was granted complete amnesty, thanks to Ben-Gurion’s intercession.
The man went on to become a respected lawyer and in the late 1970s
was appointed Director General of the Jewish Agency (which is, in
effect, the executive of the zionist movement). In early 1978 the facts
concerning his past were widely discussed in the Israeli press, but
no rabbi or rabbinical scholar questioned either the amnesty or his
fitness for his new office. His appointment was not revoked.

14. Shulhan ‘ Arukh , ‘Hoshen Mishpat’ 426.

15. Tractate ‘Avodah Zarah, p. 26b.

16. Maimonides, op. cit., ‘Murderer’ 4, 11.

17. Leviticus , 19:16. Concerning the rendering ‘thy fellow’, see note 14
to Chapter 3.

18. Maimonides, op. cit., ‘Idolatry’ 10, 1-2.

19. In both cases in section ‘Yoreh De‘ah’ 158. The Shulhan ‘Arukh
repeats the same doctrine in ‘Hoshen Mishpat’ 425.

20. Moses Rivkes, Be’er Haggolah on Shulhan ‘Arukh, ‘Hoshen Mishpat’
425.

21. Thus Professor Jacob Katz, in his Hebrew book Between Jews
and Gentiles as well as in its more apologetic English version
Exclusiveness and Tolerance, quotes only this passage verbatim and
draws the amazing conclusion that ‘regarding the obligation to save
life no discrimination should be made between Jew and Christian’.
He does not quote any of the authoritative views I have cited above
or in the next section.

22. Maimonides, op. cit., ‘Sabbath’ 2, 20-21; Shulhan ‘Arukh, ‘Orah
Hayyim’ 329.

23. R. ‘Aqiva Eiger, commentary on Shulhan ‘Arukh, ibid. He also adds
that if a baby is found abandoned in a town inhabited mainly by
Gentiles, a rabbi should be consulted as to whether the baby should
be saved.

24. Tractate ‘Avodah Zarah, p. 26.

25. Maimonides, op. cit., ‘Sabbath’ 2, 12; Shulhan ‘Arukh, ‘Orah
Hayyim’ 330. The latter text says ‘heathen’ rather than ‘Gentile’
but some of the commentators, such as Turey Zahav, stress that
this ruling applies ‘even to Ishmaelites’, that is, to Muslims, ‘who
are not idolators’. Christians are not mentioned explicitly in this
connection, but the ruling must a fortiori apply to them, since - as
we shall see below - Islam is regarded in a more favourable light than
Christianity. See also the responsa of Hatam Sofer quoted below.

136 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

26. These two examples, from Poland and France, are reported by Rabbi
I.Z. Cahana (afterwards professor of Talmud in the religious Bar-
Ilan University, Israel), ‘Medicine in the Halachic post-Talmudic
Literature’, Sinai, vol 27, 1950, p. 221. He also reports the following
case from 19th century Italy. Until 1848, a special law in the Papal
States banned Jewish doctors from treating Gentiles. The Roman
Republic established in 1848 abolished this law along with all other
discriminatory law against Jews. But in 1849 an expeditionary force
sent by France’s President Louis Napoleon (afterwards Emperor
Napoleon III) defeated the Republic and restored Pope Pius IX,
who in 1850 revived the anti-Jewish laws. The commanders of the
French garrison, disgusted with this extreme reaction, ignored the
papal law and hired some Jewish doctors to treat their soldiers. The
Chief Rabbi of Rome, Moshe Hazan, who was himself a doctor,
was asked whether a pupil of his, also a doctor, could take a job
in a French military hospital despite the risk of having to desecrate
the sabbath. The rabbi replied that if the conditions of employment
expressly mention work on the sabbath, he should refuse. But if
they do not, he could take the job and employ ‘the great cleverness
of God-fearing Jews’. For example, he could repeat on Saturday the
prescription given on Friday, by simply telling this to the dispenser. R.
Cahana’s rather frank article, which contains many other examples,
is mentioned in the bibliography of a book by the former Chief
Rabbi of Britain, R. Immanuel Jakobovits, Jeivish Medical Ethics,
Bloch, New York, 1962; but in the book itself nothing is said on
this matter.

27. Hokbmat Shlomoh on Shulhan ‘Arukh, ‘Orah Hayyim’ 330, 2.

28. R. Unterman, Ha’aretz, 4 April 1966. The only qualification he
makes - after having been subjected to continual pressure - is that
in our times any refusal to give medical assistance to a Gentile could
cause such hostility as might endanger Jewish lives.

29. Hatam Sofer, Responsa on Shulhan ‘Arukh, ‘Yoreh De‘ah’ 131.

30. Op. cit., on Shulhan ‘Arukh, ‘Hoshen Mishpat’ 194.

31. R.B. Knobelovitz in The Jewish Review (Journal of the Mizrachi
Party in Great Britain), 8 June 1966.

32. R. Yisra’el Me’ir Kagan - better known as the ‘Hafetz Hayyim’
- complains in his Mishnah Berurah, written in Poland in 1907:
‘And know ye that most doctors, even the most religious, do not
take any heed whatsoever of this law; for they work on the sabbath
and do travel several parasangs to treat a heathen, and they grind
medicaments with their own hands. And there is no authority for
them to do so. For although we may find it permissible, because
of the fear of hostility, to violate bans imposed by the sages - and

NOTES AND REFERENCES 137

even this is not clear; yet in bans imposed by the Torah itself it
must certainly be forbidden for any Jew to do so, and those who
transgress this prohibition violate the sabbath utterly and may God
have mercy on them for their sacrilege.’ (Commentary on Shulhan
‘Arukh, ‘Orah Hayyim’ 330.) The author is generally regarded as
the greatest rabbinical authority of his time.

33. Avraham Steinberg MD (ed.), Jeivish Medical Law, compiled
from Tzitz Eli’ezer (Responsa of R. Eli'ezer Yehuda Waldenberg),
translated by David B. Simons MD, Gefen & Mossad Harav Kook,
Jerusalem and California, 1980.

34. Op. cit., p. 39.

35. Ibid., p. 41.

36. Ibid., p. 41. The phrase ‘between Jew and gentile’ is a euphemism.
The dispensation is designed to prevent hostility of Gentiles towards
Jews, not the other way around.

37. Ibid., pp. 41-2; my emphasis.

38. Dr Falk Schlesinger Institute for Medical Halakhic Research at
Sha’arey Tzedeq Hospital, Sefer Asya (The Physician’s Book),
Reuben Mass, Jerusalem, 1979.

39. By myself in Ha'olam Hazzeh, 30 May 1979 and by Shullamit Aloni,
Member of Knesset, in Ha’aretz, 17 June 1980.

40. Ezekiel, 23:20.

41. Tractate Berakhot, p. 78a.

42. Talmudic Encyclopedia, ‘Eshet Ish’ (‘Married Woman’).

43. Exodus, 20:17.

44. Genesis, 2:24.

45. Maimonides, op. cit., ‘Prohibitions on Sexual Intercourse’ 12, 10;
Talmudic Encyclopedia, ‘Goy’.

46. Maimonides, op. cit., ibid., 12, 1-3. As a matter of fact, every Gentile
woman is regarded as N.Sh.G.Z. - acronym for the Hebrew words
niddah, shifhah, goyah, zonah (unpurified from menses, slave,
Gentile, prostitute). Upon conversion to Judaism, she ceases indeed
to be niddah, shifhah, goyah but is still considered zonah (prostitute)
for the rest of her life, simply by virtue of having been born of a
Gentile mother. In a special category is a woman ‘conceived not in
holiness but born in holiness’, that is born to a mother who had
converted to Judaism while pregnant. In order to make quite sure
that there are no mix-ups, the rabbis insist that a married couple
who convert to Judaism together must abstain from marital relations
for three months.

47. Characteristically, an exception to this generalisation is made
with respect to Gentiles holding legal office relating to financial
transactions: notaries, debt collectors, bailiffs and the like. No

138 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

similar exception is made regarding ordinary decent Gentiles, not
even if they are friendly towards Jews.

48. Some very early (1st century BC) rabbis called this law ‘barbaric’
and actually returned lost property belonging to Gentiles. But the
law nevertheless remained.

49. Leviticus , 25:14. This is a literal translation of the Hebrew phrase.
The King James Version renders this as ‘ye shall not oppress one
another’; ‘oppress’ is imprecise but ‘one another’ is a correct
rendering of the biblical idiom ‘each man his brother’. As pointed
out in Chapter 3, the Halakhah interprets all such idioms as referring
exclusively to one’s fellow Jew.

50. Shulhan ‘Arukh, ‘Hoshen Mishpat’ 227.

51. This view is advocated by H. Bar-Droma, Wezeb Gvul Ha’aretz
(And This Is the Border of the Land), Jerusalem, 1958. In recent
years this book is much used by the Israeli army in indoctrinating
its officers.

52. Maimonides, op. cit., ‘Idolatry’ 10, 3-4.

53. See note 2.

54. Exodus, 23:33.

55. Maimonides, op. cit., ‘Idolatry’ 10, 6.

56. Deuteronomy, 20:16. See also the verses quoted in note 10.

57. Numbers, 31:13-20; note in particular verse 17: ‘Now therefore kill
every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath
known man by lying with him.’

58. R. Sha’ul Yisra’eli, ‘Taqrit Qibbiya Le’or Hahalakhah’ (The Qibbiya
incident in the light of the Halakhah’), in Hattorah Wehammedinah,
vol 5, 1953/4.

59. This is followed by a blessing ‘for not making me a slave’. Next,
a male must add a blessing ‘for not making me a woman’, and a
female ‘for making me as He pleased’.

60. In eastern Europe it was until recent times a universal custom among
Jews to spit on the floor at this point, as an expression of scorn. This
was not however a strict obligation, and today the custom is kept
only by the most pious.

6 1 . The Hebrew word is meshummadim, which in rabbinical usage refers
to Jews who become ‘idolaters’, that is either pagan or Christians,
but not to Jewish converts to Islam.

62. The Hebrew word is minim, whose precise meaning is ‘disbelievers
in the uniqueness of God’.

63. Tractate Berakhot, p. 58b.

64. According to many rabbinical authorities the original rule still applies
in full in the Land of Israel.

NOTES AND REFERENCES 139

65. This custom gave rise to many incidents in the history of European
Jewry. One of the most famous, whose consequence is still visible
today, occurred in 14th century Prague. King Charles IV of Bohemia
(who was also Holy Roman Emperor) had a magnificent crucifix
erected in the middle of a stone bridge which he had built and which
still exists today. It was then reported to him that the Jews of Prague
are in the habit of spitting whenever they pass next to the crucifix.
Being a famous protector of the Jews, he did not institute persecution
against them, but simply sentenced the Jewish community to pay for
the Hebrew word Adonay (Lord) to be inscribed on the crucifix in
golden letters. This word is one of the seven holiest names of God,
and no mark of disrespect is allowed in front of it. The spitting
ceased. Other incidents connected with the same custom were much
less amusing.

66. The verses most commonly used for this purpose contain words
derived from the Hebrew root shaqetz which means ‘abominate,
detest’, as in Deuteronomy, 7:26: ‘thou shalt utterly detest it, and
thou shalt utterly abhor it; for it is a cursed thing.’ It seems that
the insulting term sheqetz, used to refer to all Gentiles (Chapter 2),
originated from this custom.

67. Talmud, Tractate Beytzah, p. 21a, b; Mishnah Berurah on Shidhan
‘Arukh, ‘Orah Hayyim’ 512. Another commentary ( Magen Avrabam)
also excludes Karaites.

68. According to the Halakha, a Gentile slave bought by a Jew should be
converted to Judaism, but does not thereby become a proper Jew.

69. Leviticus, 25:46.

70. The Hebrew form of the name Jesus - Yeshu - was interpreted as
an acronym for the curse ‘may his name and memory be wiped
out’, which is used as an extreme form of abuse. In fact, anti-zionist
Orthodox Jews (such as Neturey Qarta) sometimes refer to Herzl as
‘Herzl Jesus’ and I have found in religious Zionist writings expressions
such as ‘Nasser Jesus’ and more recently ‘Arafat Jesus’.

INDEX

Compiled by Sue Carlton

9/11 terrorist attacks xxiii-xxiv
adultery 104, 129n
Aggadah (narrative) 47
Agnon, Shmuel 112
agriculture 49, 58, 60, 63
and mixed crops 53
and sabbatical year 51-2
Alexander III, Emperor of Russia
78

Alexander VI Borgia, Pope 26
Almohad regime (Spain) 69, 116
Almoravid regime(Spain) 69
Aloni, Shulamit 32
Amalekites 92, 101, 110, 134n
antisemitism vii, xi, xxiii, xxviii,
2, 5, 6, 14, 36, 64
alliance with zionism 85-6
modern 79-83
Zionist response to 83-7
Apuleius 26, 33
Arabs xxv, 33, 92
employment of 52
see also Palestinians
Aramaic 40, 47, 51, 57
Arba’ah Turim 97
Arendt, Hannah 19
Artaxerxes I, King of Persia 60-1
Asimov, Isaac 35
assimilation 85, 86
Austria 18, 20-1, 62, 84

Babylonian exile 60
Bar Mitzvah ceremony 21
Begin, Menachem vii, 33, 37, 42,
109

Belsen concentration camp vii,
xvi, xxi

Ben-Gurion, David xx, xxv, 10,
13,42, 85, 108
Bergman, Hugo Shmuel 34
Beyt Yosef 90, 97
Bible, interpretation of 42-6
Black Death 78

Blacks, and Jewish racism 30-1,
33, 82, 127n

The Book of Education 110-11
borders, Biblical 10-12, 14
bribery 20, 25-6
British Labour Party, and
expulsion of Palestinians
36-7

Buber, Martin 33-4
Bund 64

business, and deception 107

cabbala 38-41, 128n
rituals 40-1, 128n
Canaanites 28, 40, 110
Canada, and support for Israeli
policies 122

capital punishment 18, 20-1, 24
capitalism, and antisemitism 80
Casimir III, King of Poland 73,
74

Castile, kings of 72
Charles IV, King of Bohemia
139n

chauvinism xxiv, xxvii, 14, 34,
87, 122-3
Chile 88

140

INDEX 141

Chmielnicki revolt (Ukraine
1648) 79, 87
Chomsky, Noam xv-xvi
Christian clergy, as ‘friends of
Jews’ 36

Christianity 61-2
Jewish attitude to 25, 26,
116-17

citizenship 4-5, 7
classical Judaism 38-59, 62,

126n, 127n
and Bible 42-6
major features of 62-7
and monotheism 38-9, 41, 42
and privilege 65-6
and ritual 40-2, 56-7
see also Orthodox Judaism;
Zionism

closed society 15-16, 19, 23
Collins, Frank xviii
Committee of Four Lands 74
conservatism, and antisemitism
81-2, 83

Constantine the Great 65
Constitutional Law (1985) 3
conversion

from Judaism xvii, 18-19, 25,
80

to Judaism 4-5, 126n, 137n
corpses and cemeteries 44-5
Creation 39

Cromer, Evelyn Baring, Earl of 121
Crusades, massacres of Jews 78-9
cursing 111-12, 115, 139n

Darius II, King of Persia 61
Daughter (Shekhinah), union
with Son 39-40
Dayan, Moshe 120
Decalogue 43

deception 20, 23, 29-31, 33-4
and business 107
and dispensations 50, 56-7, 58

Deutscher, Isaac 64
diaspora Jews

attacks on Shahak xvi
attitude to non-Jews xviii,
123-4

support for Israel ix, 2, 121-3,
124

dispensations 50-9, 103-4, 106,
113

and deception 50, 56-7, 58
implicit inclusion 55, 56
and profit motive 57-9
social aspects of 56-9
divorce 71, 131n
doctors 32-3, 64, 96, 99-100,
101-2, 136n
Dreyfus affair 81
Drumont, E. 81

Edward I, King of England 68
Egypt 11-12, 70, 71
Eiger, ’Aqiva (Rabbi) 98
El Salvador 88
England, Jewish residence in
67-8

English Revolution 82
equality before the law, right to
6,7

Europe, and peace process xxv
exclusivist ideologies xxiv,

xxv-xxvi, xxviii, 8-9, 121
expulsion

of Jews 68-9, 73
of Palestinians xx, 8, 34, 36,
116

Ezra, book of 60-1

Fatimid empire 69, 71, 72
fellow, interpretation of 44-5, 96,
114, 138n

Ferdinand II, King of Aragon 73
First Cause 39

142 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

France

antisemitism 80, 81, 82-3
Jewish residence in 68
fraud 107

French Revolution 17, 19, 82-3,

86

Galilee, Judaization of 9
Gazit, General Shlomo 13, 14-15
Gemarah 46, 47
genocide see murder and
genocide

Gentiles (non-Jews)
abuse against 110-16
attitudes of Hassidic movement
to 32-3

discrimination against xxii,

1-2, 6-8, 14, 19-20, 21
employment on Sabbath 54-5
and interest on loans 106-7,
114-15

in Land of Israel 108-10
laws against 76, 77, 90-118
money and property 106-8
murder of 91-5
praise for 112

saving life of 1-2, 33, 34, 44,
96-104, 118

and sexual offences 104-5
and status 4, 105-6
geography, study of 22, 23
Germany

antisemitism 80, 81, 82, 84
individual rights 19
Geyl, Pieter 27

gifts and alms, giving to non-Jews
106

Gordon, A.D. 9

grain, grinding on Sabbath 48, 54
Great Schism 79
Greek Orthodox Church, and
antisemitism 82
Guatemala 88

Gush Emunim 11, 39, 42, 109
Gypsies, Nazi extermination of
77

Habbad movement 32-3
Hadas, Moses 15
Hafetz Hayyim (Rabbi Yisra’el
Me’ir Kagan) 136n
Hagga’on, Sa’adia (Rabbi) 125n
Halakhah (legal system of

classical Judaism) 47-9, 71,
90-118

and Gentiles in Land of Israel
108-10

and hatred towards Gentiles
110-16

money and property 106-8
and murder 91-2, 94, 95
and saving of life xxi-xxii,

1-2, 96-104

and sexual offences 104-5
and status of non-Jews 105-6
hand washing 40, 41, 128n
Hassidism, attitudes to non-Jews
32^1

Hatanya 32
Hebrew 42, 46, 47
Hellenism 61

Henry II, King of England 68
Henry III, King of England 68
Henry of Trastamara (later Henry
II of Castile) 72, 131n
heretics 20, 72, 111
see also Karaites
Herod the Great 6 1
Herzl, Theodor 85, 133n, 139n
Hess, Moses 36

heter’isqa (business dispensation)
51

Hippocratic oath 102, 104
historians, persecution of 121n
historiography, Jewish 19, 21,
23-4, 26-7, 63

INDEX 143

Hitler, Adolf 85
Hokhmat Shlomoh 100
Holocaust xi, xvii, xxi, xxii, xxiv,
xxv, 77, 132n

houses, leasing to Gentiles 109
human rights ix-x, 123-4
see also saving of life
humour, Jewish sense of 22
Hussein, King of Jordan 120
hypocrisy 13, 45, 57, 104

ID cards 7
inquisition 72
interest on loans

dispensations 50-1, 106
to Gentiles 106-7, 114-15
intermarriage 80-1, 131n
Isabella I, Queen of Castile 73
Isaiah 45

Islam, Jewish attitudes to 118
Israel

aggression xx-xxi
ancient kingdom of 60
and citizenship 7
expansionism 9-14
as Jewish state 3-10
policies based on Jewish
ideology xxi, 3-4, 6, 8-9,
10-16, 119-22
recognition of vi
relations with Syria xiii
selling of weapons 88
and stability of Arab regimes
13

see also Jewish state; Land of
Israel

Israel Land Authority 6
Israeli League for Civil and
Human Rights ix, xvii
Israeli Medical Association 104
Israeli peace camp, and
compromise xii

Israeli soldiers, and murder of
Gentiles 91-5, 110
Isserles, Moses (Rabbi) 97
Italy 22, 68-9, 136n

Jabotinsky, Ze’ev 85
Jabri, Sheikh of Hebron 120
Jacquerie (France 1357-58) 87
Janissary corps 70
Jesus 25,30, 117, 118
as term of abuse 139n
Jewish communities, and legal
power over members 17-19,
72, 79

Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah)
39, 84

Jewish identity xxv, xxvii, 4-6,
17, 21-2

Jewish Medical Law 102-3
Jewish National Fund (JNF) 6, 8,
9

Jewish state

as closed society 15-16
creation of xxiii
definition of 3-8
Jews

characteristics attributed to 22,
81

exile from Holy Fand 40
and hatred of learning 22-3
and knowledge of Jewish
history 23-4

and liberalisation 17, 19-23,
79-80, 85-6

massacres in Europe 78-9
in Muslim countries xxiv
need to confront own past
xxii-xxiii, xxiv-xxv,
xxvii-xxviii, 87-9, 124
persecutions 76-9
as scapegoats 80
under feudal regimes 67-79
see also diaspora Jews

144 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

Jordan, relations with Israel 120
Judah, ancient kingdom of 60
Judaism

historical phases 60-2
see also classical Judaism;
Orthodox Judaism
‘Judeo-Nazi’ x

Kafr Qasim (1956) 95
Kahana, Rabbi Kalman 94
Kahane, Rabbi Meir 1 1
Karaites (heretical sect) 72, 100,
103

Karo, Yosef (Rabbi) 90, 97
Kaufman, Yehezkiel 34
Kennedy, John F. vi
kibbutz 9, 21, 52, 119
Kimmerling, Baruch xvi
King, Martin Luther 31, 123
kings, exception to laws against
Gentiles 64
Kiryat-Arba 120
Kohens (priestly tribe) 105
Kol Nidrey prayer 57
kosher food 57
Kushites 31

Labor Party xii
Lahis, Shmu’el 134-5n
land

redemption of 8-9, 13, 121
selling to non-Jews 51-2, 108
Land of Israel 8, 11-12, 108,
121

Laqueur, Walter 8-9
Law of Jerusalem 42
Law of Return 7-8
laws see Halakhah
leavened substances 53-4
Lebanon 11-12, 32, 121
1982 atrocities xx
Leibowitch, Yehoshua x
Lemberg ( now Lvov) 21

Lenin, V.I. 12
life see saving of life
Lior, Dov (Rabbi) 11-12
lost property 107, 138n
Louis VII, King of France 68

Magna Carta 68
Maimonides, Moses viii, 71
attitude to Christianity 116
attitude to Islam 118
Guide to the Perplexed 30-1
on interest on loans 107
Mishneh Torah 26, 29-30, 90
on saving life of Gentiles 96-7,
98, 99, 101, 118
marriages, forbidden 71
Marx, Karl xxvii, 12, 59
Marxism xi, 58-9
Meir, Golda 120
Mencius 89
Meretz xii

Mesopotamia 60, 63
messianism xxv
Metternich regime 20-1
Midrashiyyat No’am college 92
midwives 99, 100-1
milking, on Sabbath 52-3
Mishnah xxii, 46-7
Mishnah Berurah 90, 136n
Mishneh Torah (Maimonides) 26,
29-30, 90
mixed crops 53
Moses 39

Moshe (soldier), letters to rabbi
92-3, 94-5

Mossad Harav Kook 102
Muhammad 118
murder and genocide 34, 91-5,
110, 133-4n

Muslim countries, Jewish
communities in 69-71
mysticism 19-20, 32, 34, 38-9
see also cabbala

INDEX 145

Nakbah (1948) xx
Napoleon III, Emperor of France
136n

al-Nasser, Gamal abd xx
Nazism xxiv, 33, 83, 85-6
Jewish 133n
Nehemiah, book of 6 1
New Testament, burning of 25,
118

Nicaragua 88

Nicholas I, Emperor of Russia
20, 78

Noahide precepts 109, 134n
non-Jews see Gentiles (non-Jews)

Old Testament 22, 38, 43, 46, 60
Orthodox Judaism 15-16, 38,
45-6, 58, 90, 116, 119
Orwell, George xi, 35
Oslo peace process xii, xxv, xxvi
Ottoman empire
antisemitism 84
Jewish communities in 70

Palestine 60-1, 85
and expulsion of Arabs 36-7,
116

Palestinians vi, ix

demonisation of xxiii-xxiv
expulsion 34, 36-7, 109, 116
oppression of 35
rights xii, xvii, 2, 87, 123
uprisings xx

zionist persecution of 77, 86-7
Papal States, Jewish residence in
68

Parthian empire 131n
Passover 53-4, 61
Patriarch, in Roman Empire
65-6, 13 In
patriotism 19, 35
Paul, St 61-2
Peace Now xii

Peasant War (Germany 1525) 87
peasants

absent in classical Judaism
63-4

peasant revolts 87-9
Pedro I, King of Castile 72
Pentateuch 44, 60, 113
persecutions 76-9, 131n
Petlyura, Simon 85
Pharisees 43, 61
Philip II, King of France 68
Philip IV, King of France 68
Philo of Alexandria 126n
Plato 14-15, 126n
Platonism 15

Plehve, Count von 85, 133n
PLO (Palestine Liberation
Organisation) xii, 120
pogroms xxiii, 78
Poland 66, 131n, 136n
Jewish communities in 73-6
and rabbinical courts 18, 20
Royal Towns 74-5
Popper, Karl 15, 22
Prague, crucifix on bridge 139n
prayers 40-1

and scorn for Gentiles 110-11
Prinz, Dr Joachim 85-6
privileges 65, 71, 74
propaganda xi, 9, 11, 32, 34, 64
Protestant churches, and
antisemitism 82
Pugachev rebellion 87

Qadish prayer 57
Qafar Qassam massacre (1956)
xx

Qibbiya massacre 110
Qur’an 118

Rabbenu Tam 68
rabbinical courts 18-19, 71,
105-6

146 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

rabbis

in classical period 66-7
and payment 56
in Roman Empire 65-6
and tax exemption 65-6
Rabin, Yitzhak, assassination of
xiii

racism xxi, xxiv, xxv, 2, 14,

36-7, 83

anti-Black 30-1, 33, 82, 127n
irrationality of 132-3n
and Judaism xxvii
racial purity xxvi, 86
religion, role of xxvi-xxvii
religious texts

anti-gentile xxii, xxiv, xxvi
see also Halakhah; Talmud
residency rights, and discrimina¬
tion 6

Return from Babylon (537BC) 60
rituals 40-1, 128n
Rivkes, Moses (Rabbi) 97, 98
Roman Empire

and Jewish clergy 65
and Jewish Patriarch 65
legal position of Jewry 65
Rosten, Leo 31-2
Russia 78, 80, 84, 133n
Ryazin, Stenka 87

Sabbath

and employment of non-Jews
54-5

and forbidden work 47-8,
52-3, 54, 113

and payment for work 55-6
and saving life xxii, 1-2,
98-104

Sabbath-Goy 54-5, 130n
sabbatical year 51-2, 129n
Sadduceans 61, 127n
Saladin 70, 71, 118

Samuel the Chief (Shmu’el
Hannagid) 69
Satan 20, 39, 40, 41, 128n
saving of life xxii, 33, 34, 44,
96-104, 118, 135n
on Sabbath xxii, 1-2, 98-104
and threat of hostility 96-7,
99-100, 101, 102-3
Schneurssohn, M.M. (Rabbi)

32-3

Scholem, Gershom 20
Seljuk states 70
sexual offences 104-5
Shahak, Israel vii-viii, ix-xiv,
xv-xix

accused of antisemitism xvi
background ix, xvi-xvii
conversion to secularism xvii
criticism of Israeli peace camp
xii

criticism of peace process xxii,
xxv, xxvi

criticism of PLO xii
death of xv, xix
and human rights ix-x, xi, xii,
xvii-xviii, xxi

and Israeli aggression xx-xxi
lecture tours xviii
love of Israel xvii
published works xviii-xix
Reports xiii

secular approach to history xi
and translated articles xiii, xviii
and truth x-xi, xii, xiv, xv
unpopularity of xi, xii, xiv
Shamir, Yitzhak vii
Sharon, Ariel 12, 13
shaygets (sheqetz), definition of
31-2, 139n
Shazar, Zalman 33
Shevet Musar 128n
Shulhan ’Arukb (Karo) 90, 91,

98, 99, 107

INDEX 147

Sicilian vespers 132-3n
Sigismund I , King of Poland 74
Sigismund II, King of Poland 74
Sinai xx, 11, 12
Sirkis, To’el (Rabbi) 99-100
Sixtus IV, Pope 26
slavery 88, 114, 139n
Jewish role in slave trade 127n,
132n

slave troops (mamluks) 70
slave uprisings 87, 88
Slavs, Nazi extermination of 77
socialists, anti-peasant attitude
64

Sofer, Moshe (Rabbi) (‘Hatam
Sofer‘) 18, 100-2
soldiers see Israeli soldiers
Somoza regime (Nicaragua) 88
Son (Holy Blessed One), union
with Daughter 39^41
South Africa, apartheid 121, 124
Spain

conversions 126n
Jewish communities in 69,
71-3, 79

and rabbinical courts 18
spitting 112, 139n
Stalin, Josepf 123-4
Steinsalz, Adin (Rabbi) 29
Suez War (1956) 10
superstition 34, 56, 76, 128n, 129n

Talmud

attacks on Christianity 25, 26
attitude to non-Jews xxii, 1-2
Babylonian 46, 47, 49, 90
and changing social conditions
49-50

Christian attacks on 24-6
responses to 25-6, 27-30
codifications 90-1
definition of Jew 5
dispensations 50-9, 103-4

and interpretation of Bible
43-5

Jerusalem (Palestinian) 46-7
legal system 47-9
see also Halakhah
and lost property 107
and saving life 96, 99
structure of 46-50
Talmudic Encyclopedia 90, 104-5
Talmudic Omissions 28
taxation 64, 65-6, 68, 74
Temples, building and destruction
of 40, 60
Tertullian 48

theft and robbery 43, 107-8
theocracy vi, vii
Toldot Yeshu 117
Torah 101, 103, 125n, 137n
see also Mislmeb Torah
Tosafot 94, 134n
tractates 46, 94
transfer 8

see also expulsion, of
Palestinians

Translations from the Hebrew
Press xviii

Trevor-Roper, Hugh 14, 131-2n
Truman, Harry S. vi
truth x-xi, xii-xiii, 26
Turks, in Ottoman empire 70

Ukraine 79
United States

financial support for Israel
vi-vii

Israeli influence on 4
Jewish organisations 123, 124
and peace process xxv
support for Israeli policies 122
universities, disputations 25,

126n

virgin, definition of 48-9
Voltaire xi, 89

148 JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION

wages, delaying 115
Waldenberg, Eli’ezer Yehuda
(Rabbi) 102-3
War of Dutch Independence
(1568-1648) 82
weapons, purity of 92, 94, 95,
134n

Weiser, Shim’on (Rabbi), letter to
soldier 93-4

William I, King of England (the
Conqueror) 68

wine, touched by Gentiles 112-13
women, Gentile 104-5, 13 In,
137n
work

forbidden on Sabbath 47-8,
52-3
right to 6

World Zionist Organization 6, 85

xenophobia 2, 14, 82

Yiddish 31-2, 34, 84
Yom Kippur 57, 110
Yom Kippur War (1973) 120

Zionism xxii-xxiii, xxvii, 39, 42,
62, 77

and alliances with antisemitism
85-6

and attitudes to Gentiles 86-7,
119

and closed society 15, 23

and exclusive Jewish labour
52

and exclusivist ideology xxiv,
xxv-xxvi

response to antisemitism 83-7
Zionist labour movement 8-9